cindy's world

Allie’s cold is significantly better. I didn’t even have to clear her nose the last 2 mornings, and although she still has an occasional phlegmy-sounding cough a few times a day and may need to have her nose cleared after the occasional sneeze, for the most part she’s back to normal.

Except for the napping. By 15 months, more than half of toddlers have eliminated one of their 2 remaining naps, and the one that’s supposed to go is the morning nap. Allie has always fallen asleep faster and often longer for her morning nap. A few random times within the last couple of months or so, she’d skipped an afternoon nap here and there, turning the crib time into a quiet playtime. For the past 2 days in a row, she’d played the entire afternoon naptime in her crib, and although she fell asleep earlier at night, she’d been no different behavior-wise. She may be eliminating it early. In just about everything I read, the babies are supposed to eliminate their morning nap at this point and keep their afternoon nap for the next few years, but Dr. Weissbluth’s “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child” gave us a Plan B if she eliminates the 1st nap instead. I’d instructed Jayne to keep doing the regular 2-nap routine for the rest of the week and if Allie consistently turns the 2nd nap into quiet playtime, then Mr. W and I will eliminate the 2nd nap and start moving her morning nap back until it becomes an early afternoon nap. When she goes to preschool and they give age-appropriate naps, it will be in the afternoon, anyway. Mr. W’s dream of having more awake time to DO stuff with Allie may be coming true sooner than expected.

Having a whole morning and most of an evening free with a happy Allie is going to be a lot of fun. We can go to parties (there’s one coming up we were thinking we wouldn’t be able to attend as it’s an hour away), have more leisurely meals out, visit my parents and friends at their homes, or simply discover new things about Allie, which we do constantly. This past weekend, the stepdaughter said, “Go in your house,” and Allie got up and walked into her little pink tent castle that the stepkidlets had gotten her for her birthday, and looked out at us from the sheer window. “Most obedient kid in the world,” I joked. I tell her it’s bath time, naptime, bedtime, dinner time, whatever time it is, and she will drop whatever she’s doing, bounce up, and happily go and wait by the appropriate babygate doorway to go where she needs to go. We’d open the gate, and she’d run to the kitchen, climb up the stairs, wherever it is she’s going. If it’s naptime, she picks up her furry blanket that she naps with first before she goes to wait by the gate. Yesterday, Allie picked up a dropped sock from behind the stepdaughter, who was doing laundry, recognized it as a sock and tried to press it onto her own foot. Later, they were playing in the stepdaughter’s room and I heard a, “Show mom!” Allie came walking carefully out to find me in the kitchen with a floral headband and a matching scarf on. After she stood there for a second so I could exclaim how cute she was, she turned and walked back into the stepkidlet’s bedroom. Later, the stepkidlet said “show mom” was an immediate command she followed without further instruction. Jayne has said that she’d told Allie they were going for a walk, and while she was packing some things Allie showed up holding her shoes. So much fun.

The other day at work, I bent over at the hips to pick something up off the floor, and saw my hair sweep the floor. This was especially gross because I was in the shared restroom. Time for a haircut. I figured Friday was a good day, as I had taken the day off to get my annual physical checkup, and was still having Jayne come over to care for Allie so that I could have a “me” day.

Turns out I’m not used to thinking in terms of “me” anymore because I had a hard time the whole day feeling comfortable. I felt like I was plopped in a body and said, “Here, take care of this body for today” and I didn’t quite know how to do it and was fumbling around. After leaving Allie with Jayne, I drove off to the vet’s to get Dodo some prescription cat food, and realized on the drive that I forgot to medicate him this morning, so I had to go back home. Good thing I’d left early and my doctor’s appointment wasn’t until much later. And then in leaving, I was about to go to the wrong Kaiser clinic location when it suddenly occurred to me that my ob/gyn was in a different facility.
The checkup was uneventful. Doctor said I looked great, saw/felt nothing abnormal in the exam, my weight was 118 lbs and blood pressure was 118/56, pulse was a little high (for me) at 73, but my OB was happy. It’s nice to know where I stand with the numbers once a year, since I don’t weigh myself at home anymore. Of course, it’s not exactly a cholesterol screening, either. I noted as I was getting dressed that Allie’s birth announcement card was tacked up on the bulletin board of that particular exam room. I snapped a photo of that on my phone and texted it to Mr. W.
Then after that, the day was mine. I had a massage appointment at 2:30p and that was it. I already got the cat food, so that was the important errand. Next on priorities is the haircut, and buying some healthy-grain pasta for Allie so that I could make her another one-pot meal, and I needed some facial cleansing cloths I’ve seen at Costco. I’ve also purchased a variety pack of small semolina pastas at Costco, so I figured I’d go there. But first I was hungry and it was brunch time.

I tried to approach the plan logically. I know where my haircut place should be; I’d been going to the same salon since I discovered it after moving to the current residence in 2008. So the meal should be some place close to it. I decided to give Break of Dawn restaurant another try. College roommie Diana had suggested we all try it when she and her hubby visited some time ago, and Mr. W and I had found the food a little rich for our liking. Nevertheless, after looking the location up on my smartphone, I put in the info on my nav and off I went.

The small restaurant was at least half-full and I was seated immediately at a table by the window. The menu threw me a little; the descriptions didn’t tell me enough about what each item was, the form they were served in, so altho I was drawn immediately to some kabocha soup, I needed some help. A guy who may have been the owner came by and asked if I was ready to order, and I kind of was, I just needed some clarification. The 3-course meal included the kabocha squash soup and a choice of an entrée and I was interested in the chicken stew option, and it had a dessert, but I wasn’t STARVING, so I asked him about portion size. He said it’s enough to make me full but that stew and kabocha soup wasn’t good together because it’s 2 “watery” things. Okay, so I asked about something else, and he asked what it is I’m looking for. I said I wanted to try the soup, but ordering the soup entrée came with 2 items of fried things and I don’t want to eat anything fried, so I asked for his recommendation. He told me he doesn’t recommend things and that he doesn’t know what I want or am looking for so I should just study the menu longer and order later, and then he walked away. Good thing I wasn’t rushed for time. Geez. The busboy who had seated me and brought me the menu and water soon came by and asked if I was ready to order, as it was clear the other guy was by now ignoring me. I just ordered the chicken curry stew and left it at that. The food was fine. But it didn’t fill me up. I left anyway without ordering anything additional. Pretty uncomfortable experience. The Vietnamese owner guy never came back to my table.

Off to the important thing on my list: the haircut. I pumped in my car in a secluded area of a parking lot near the salon (that was fun), then drove to the salon. I was happy to see that the guy whom I’d gone to exclusively to cut my hair for the past 5 years was there, altho he was giving an order man a haircut so it looks like there would be a wait. I could wait a little bit given the time. Richard looked up and smiled at me and I happily said, “Hi!”
“Hi,” he took a few steps toward me. “Can I help you?”
It dawned on me that Richard did not recognize me. Has it been that long? I’d gotten one haircut after giving birth and sure it was almost a year ago, but he ALWAYS cut my hair and we would chat and he’d kid around with me and asked how my pregnancy was going and blah blah! Could it be he’d NEVER recognized me in all the years I’d been going there? That can’t be it; he’d told me before when I was 8 months pregnant that the time I’d been there previously, the owner of the salon asked him if I’d gained a little weight, and he had laughed and told her I was pregnant, and that when the owner asked how far along I was, she was shocked that I didn’t look MORE pregnant. Maybe he’d fallen and hit his head some time in the past year and now has amnesia, but somehow retained the knowledge of how to cut hair. Anyway, after ascertaining that he would be unable to fit me in until 2:30, the same time as my massage appointment, I said I’d come back another day and left.

I now had time to go to Costco before my massage appointment after all, but the Costco closer to the massage place, and one I was unfamiliar with, was only a couple of miles from my earlier doctor’s appointment. As I drove back the way I’d come, I thought about how this was so poorly planned as to make it un-executable. I should’ve just stayed in this area and I could’ve avoided the discomfort at Break of Dawn, and the trip-for-nothing at the salon. I even drove unsteadily, the reflexes operating when to go, how to smoothly merge into traffic, making snap judgments on whether I could pull out and turn left all now rusty due to lack of use.
Turns out the Costco I’d found was the puniest Costco ever. I circled the place twice and the only pasta they had was one brand of spaghetti. Plus their layout was different from other Costcos so I had a hard time doing the quick beelines to the stuff I needed to get. At least it helped me in accomplishing the impossible: getting out of Costco with only $26 in purchases. Mr. W, the big Costco fan, had never done THAT.

I got to the massage appointment early, so I had half an hour to visit a coffeehouse a few doors down, and things started going right after that. I ordered a blueberry muffin (cuz I was still hungry from brunch) and a spiced Chai tea latte, and while I waited for the tea, was able to rinse out my pump parts in the tidy restroom. I enjoyed my beverage and snack while reading a chapter on my Kindle (A Storm of Swords, the 3rd volume in George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire” series, aka “Game of Thrones” series), then with 5 minutes to spare, walked to the massage place.

The massage was needed and very relaxing, and as usual after it was over all too quickly, I thought about how great it would be if they’d allow the option of renting the massage room after a massage so that patrons could take a nap.

Last thing before heading home: I went to the healthy/organics grocery store across the street from the house and bought Allie some organic whole grain baby waffles and other stuff. And then I got home, beating Mr. W by only half an hour or so as he returned from work.

I don’t think I’m gonna need a “me” day for awhile. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Even with little Allie’s phlegmy coughs that she’s had for the past 2 days (Jayne has a cold), she still makes me happier than having a whole day with endless possibilities to myself. Especially when she now added a part in the morning routine when she’d pull off during nursing and then struggle to sit up and pull herself up to my face, just to plant a kiss on my lips, followed by a gleeful smile with solid eye contact.

(Sorry, men…this may be TMI for you as it’s all about breast milk. You’re welcome to read, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Pumping is going so well — now that I know how to induce subsequence let-downs and thus have stopped stressing about it — that the family freezer is now overrun with gallon Ziploc bags containing bags of frozen breast milk. I guess I was never less than 3 Ziploc bags, or about 2 weeks, ahead of Allie’s usage, but Allie had a jump in consumption a couple of months ago that coincided with a milk decrease on my end, which ate away at my stockpile cushion so swiftly that I got really stressed, which just added to the whole problem. Now, the freezer has 7 Ziploc bags full of the filled Lasinoh storage bags, and I’m halfway into filling the 8th Ziploc, and I’m about 5 weeks ahead (meaning the milk she’s drinking today was pumped out 5 weeks ago). This past week, since we started meat (just chicken, which we are still “hiding” in kale and/or carrot), Allie’s milk consumption dropped predictably. Instead of two 8-oz bottles a day after each nap, she’s down to two 7-oz bottles. She’s still nursing after she wakes up in the morning and before she goes down for the night, but I don’t know how much she’s taking in at those times.

I’d called the lactation nurse last month to ask if I should be reducing my pumping to match with Allie’s reduced nursing sessions (she nurses/drinks milk 4 times a day), and the nurse told me to hold off for another month to prevent a sudden decrease in milk production that may drop off too early, since I would ideally like to reach the one-year mark in giving Allie breast milk. For now, the nurse said, just reduce the pumping times to 15 minutes a session, instead of 20. Mr. W complains about the loss of freezer space, saying his freezer is overteeming with breast milk, so I think I’m good on my stockpile and can drop off a pump session now, even tho I don’t think it’s been quite a month, yet. After a month, the lactation nurse advised, I can spread the pump sessions to every 4 hours instead of every 3, and thereby eliminate a pump session in the day.

I probably can’t drop the 4:30am pumping session (darn), since that one yields the most milk (I did drop the time spent pumping so now I get 6 oz instead of 7-8), but dropping one of the 3 that I do at work would probably be helpful and give me half an hour back of worktime. All I have to do is match my pumping with the times that Allie actually would nurse when we’re together. That means delaying my morning pumping from 9:30a to 10:30a, eliminating the 1pm pumping, and bringing the 3:30p down to 2:30p. I get my lunches back, could MAYBE hit the gym again (the lactation nurse warned that if I start strenuous exercise too suddenly, that it could also adversely affect my milk supply), and it gives me more time to “refuel” before Allie’s bedtime feeding.

I think I’ll start this today. Hopefully it doesn’t wane my milk supply too dramatically, but I guess I can always add the eliminated pump session back in.

I realized recently I don’t know anyone who had to wean themselves off the pumps. My friends’ babies either weaned themselves early from the breast, causing my friends to dry up on the pumps and switch to formula; or my friends quit breastfeeding for whatever reason before the year-mark (when baby could take dairy) and didn’t pump as they intentionally switched their babies to formula; or my friends are able to be around their babies enough to breastfeed regularly and let the babies’ own supply/demand control weaning naturally. I’m kind of amazed that it looks like I’m going to be able to give Allie breast milk all the way through her first year, which is what the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends, and then put her straight on cow’s milk when she’s ready for dairy at 1 year without having to bridge any gap with baby formula. I was just hoping to get through my personal minimum of 3 months for her health benefits initially, and when that passed, I set my goal for 6 months with some trepidation, and then when that went well, was crossing my fingers and aiming for a year, without daring to hope too much. I still have 2.5 months to go, but it’s looking good. *still crossing fingers*

I had a couple of drinks after what I described below. 🙂

It seems that whenever I see Edgar’s family members, I get a little evaluation of my current physique. There was his birthday, when his cousin made a couple of comments about how fat I wasn’t and how my engagement didn’t count. And then there was Ruby’s bridal shower last month, when Edgar’s mom went on and on about how I am so much smaller now than I used to be. So at their wedding, when I saw Edgar’s cousin (the same one) across the room and waved when we made eye contact, I’d predicted what happened next, despite the fact that we’re social network friends and she sees photos all the time of me online.

Her eyes opened wide in recognition and she opened her mouth in a shocked smile, then came over, her legs barely able to make the strides in the very, very short and very, very fitted, very low-cut white dress she wore. (I had learned since our last meeting that she had some help with the physical enhancements, and I suppose if you paid good money for it, you should show it off.) “Cindy! Oh, my God! You’re so skinny! How’d you get so skinny? I mean, compared to how you were BEFORE. What’s your secret? What have you been doing?”
I chuckled politely, then said, “I haven’t really been doing anything, just breastfeeding and taking care of Allie.”
“Really? Just breastfeeding and baby duty, huh?” She looked at me skeptically, like I was sitting on a Fountain of Trimness and won’t share the treasure map. She complimented Allie, then the conversation ended shortly thereafter with her saying, “Well, you look great! Compared to before,” as she gave my forearm a squeeze and returned to her date.

Eddie’s wife Michelle, whom I’ve known and been good friends with for the past 4 years, who was also at this wedding, and also knows of the prior 2 incidents referred to above, said to me after the cousin left, “Dude. How big WERE you?!” HAHAHAHA!! But in truth, there hasn’t been much of a change in the past years. I think the peak of my obesity, as I refer to it, was a mere 20 lbs or so more than I weigh now, and that was in 2000 or so, when I started running and GAINED weight despite the 3 miles every other day because my crappy-ass physician at the time told me to increase the mileage, frequency, and drop my daily caloric intake from 1000 to 800 calories a day. Talk about hitting starvation mode as my body flew into fat conservation and retention and turned off the metabolism. But Edgar’s family makes it sound like I used to need an assistant to pull up on my fat rolls so that another assistant could sponge wash between the folds as I laid in a collapsed oversized bed demanding Twinkies and gravy fries, pale from not being able to leave the room to go into sunlight as the doorways weren’t wide enough for me to exit the room I’d eaten my way into.

It seems to me kind of a waste that I’ve invested all this time learning all these baby things, and I’m really enjoying making healthy baby food which Allie seems to enjoy (new today: organic baby kale + organic carrot puree, and will do a steamed pear + organic cherry puree for dessert), and these skills are going to be good for, oh, a few months. I feel like I need to find out who else is having a baby and offer to make food for their kid with a grocery expense account or something. Hey, the neighbor across the street just gave birth. Paisley Rose is the baby’s name. Maybe I’ll make the offer. I’ll first intimidate her with information about not using steaming liquid for some things that are high nitrate veggies, like kale and carrot, but to use the steaming liquid on other things that are safe like pear in order to add the nutrients back in, and give her info on what foods constipate and which ones are laxative and which ones are to be introduced later (like eggplant) and which ones to feed together to maximize nutrient absorption (like high-iron spinach with high-vitamin C carrot to help the body absorb the iron), and when her head’s swimming, I’ll offer to take all the guesswork out and prep it for her for $15/week. Then I’ll get to keep using my Baby Chef baby food maker, which I love.

Speaking of eating baby food…we finally got Allie her own baby toothbrush. The doctor’s recommendation all along was a wet washcloth to wipe down her mouth, tongue and gums twice a day, but it’s really hard to get a terry washcloth into her mouth without her sucking all the tap water out, plus it’s too hard to get it — along with my finger — far enough in her little mouth to access her gums. So we went on a walk last week to the store across the street…

and brushing immediately became my favorite part of the morning and bedtime routines. Here’s why:


She was a little distracted by the cameraphone in her face, but normally she says “Ahh!” when we say “Ahh.” She sees the toothbrush coming and smiles and opens her mouth. How cute is that?!

I pumped for an hour on the manual hand pump this morning. The letdown came at 50 minutes, after I’d gone from the left to the right back to the left and had already managed to extract 5 ounces sans letdown by treating myself like a cow with my free hand. My poor breast tissues. Good thing I started at 4:34 a.m. and had the time. Maybe I just have to get up earlier yet. I’m happy for the final ounce-count, best early-morning pump sesh in a long time at 7.5 ounces.

I have never thought I’d ever give my boobs so much thought, attention, or publicity.

From research online and from talking to my pumping expert pal, college roommie Diana, I think my problem with milk supply isn’t a lack of milk; it’s a lack of let-downs. Diana taught me how to fiddle with the dials and buttons on my Medela double electric breast pumps to induce subsequent let-downs beyond the first one, and I took tips from other moms’ experiences on online discussion boards such as watching videos of their baby, relaxing, rearranging the pump flange to get suction on a different part of the milk ducts. I have also been drinking homemade pork hock stew (thanks to my mom) for the past 3 lunches hoping the old Chinese folk wisdom for increasing milk production has some merit to it.

The first time I tried all these things in conjunction, the yield was nearly double what it had been (the first time, almost 5oz instead of the 3oz I’m now aiming for, and hitting 4 a couple of times after). I’m also pumping longer (about 20 minutes instead of giving up after 10). I even got a let-down on the hand-pump yesterday morning, the first in 3 mornings. I was optimistic and excited. Yesterday afternoon and today, however, other factors seeped in making my work pump situation no longer ideal. We were assigned an attempted murder trial, which before maternity leave would’ve made me happy. However, with my pumping, a trial means I miss out on portions of the proceedings while I’m pumping, and that I no longer have our jury room to pump in. Thanks to the generous offer by my coworker Erin, I get to stay on the floor and use her semi-private restroom, but that still means I have to run down the hall and pump in a room colder than I’m used to (which I’ve read does affect let-down reflex) with time constraints on my mind, which adds more pressure and stress which of course all help block the Baby La-La-Land mentality that is apparently required for my brain to produce oxytocin on demand. I also feel bad interrupting that courtroom’s personnel to burst in there a few times a day, and for taking up a chunk of their small fridge to store my milk and other pump stuff. I had hoped to establish better, more productive pumping sessions by doing all this new stuff until my body got used to it, so the timing of this trial sucks.

For those people who are blissfully unfamiliar with the processes of breastfeeding, the danger is that if I can’t drain the milk out of my breasts on a very regular basis, my body will think that there is not a great demand for milk. It will then make LESS milk. And if I still can’t empty the breasts then, it will think it’s still making more than is needed, and it will in turn make even less. This is the miraculous responsiveness of a mother’s body to the needs of her child. It’s perfect in theory, unless you’re a modern-society mom who works outside of the home. (Not that I’m not immensely grateful for the abundance of clean running hot water to clean pump parts, federal laws protecting my right to pump at the workplace without risking my job, and reliable electricity to operate my breast pumps, all free of charge, thanks to my living in a non-third-world country. Altho…if I lived in a third-world country, I probably would be nursing my child all the time instead of going to a job elsewhere.)

In any case, I suppose even if I dry up prior to a year and have to introduce Allie to dairy earlier than recommended by pediatricians, or have to supplement with some formula against pediatric advice, I’m still in a better position than the tatted-up guy sitting about 20 feet from me on trial for beating his girlfriend into pulp with a flashlight.

(Giant zucchini from my courtroom assistant’s garden yesterday. It will soon be incorporated in Allie’s meals for the next, oh, month. In addition to other things, of course; currently in the freezer are pureed cauliflower, purple yam, sweet potato, a prior batch of zucchini, peach, pear. In the cabinet are pureed prunes and a variety of baby cereal: white rice, brown rice, oatmeal & banana, and mixed grains minus the allergenic wheat.)

Allie has been going through some changes. She’s resisting her napping for the 2nd week or so now. She’d fight her naptimes and then crash later from sheer exhaustion. She popped out her 5th tooth yesterday, right next to her bottom front-left tooth, so I figured maybe that was it, but she once again had shown no sign of any teething discomfort. The tooth was a surprise.

I spent 20 minutes on the phone yesterday with lactation nurse Kelsie, whom I’m familiar with and had all of my lactation clinic visits with, and another 20 minutes with Allie’s regular pediatrician, Dr. T.
Lactation Nurse re Calories
Kelsie noted that Allie’s weight had dropped to the 66th percentile although her height has remained in the 99th, but didn’t find it an alarming dip. She said babies are so active and growing at this age that the quick weight gains of early babyhood no longer apply. She asked where Allie’s sources of fat come from, and aside from breastmilk, I couldn’t think of any. Kelsie suggested avocado, which is the ONE THING Allie had rejected. I guess I’ll re-introduce it. “She doesn’t need a lot, so you can just hide it inside a food she does eat, like sweet potatoes,” Kelsie suggested. She said the only thing of possible concern for her based on what I was saying about Allie is that according to Jayne, Allie seems to still be hungry after bottlefeedings and solids feedings, so maybe higher fat in her foods would help the stomach stay fuller longer.
Re Waning Milk Supply
As for my milk supply, Kelsie was impressed I was still breastfeeding, saying that she often gets calls from moms who ask resentfully, “Do I still have to keep doing this? When can I stop?!” She says at 8 months, we’re approaching the end of milk being the main supply of nutrition for the baby, so we’re almost done. Babies at 1 year typically only nurse twice a day, morning and night, and all their other nutrition comes from foods outside of breastmilk. I’ve dropped an OUNCE per pumping since that maintenance guy walked in on me, which means I’m only getting 2-3 ounces per pump session at work, and 6-7 ounces at 4:30 a.m., which isn’t enough to keep up with demand and my freezer supply cushion is starting to show it. Kelsie says this is a normal drop as my body is responding to Allie’s lesser demands for milk now that she’s been on solids for a couple of months. This is how the body follows child-led weaning. It’s nothing I did or didn’t do.

Pediatrician re Milk & Food
In speaking to the pediatrician Dr. T, he said to hold off on meat until 9 months and to keep breastmilk the primary source of nutrition through this 8th month if possible. He said all the protein the baby needs now, she gets from breastmilk. If it really seems like my milk supply can’t keep up, then I can start adding more solids, increasing the frequency of feedings from 2-3 times a day to 3-4 times a day and that would encourage her to decrease demand on milk, altho it’s best to let this happen naturally at after 9 months. The variety of foods is good for acclimating her palate to different healthy foods, and if she’s doing well with new flavors now, it’s likely a good sign that she won’t have issues switching to cow’s milk at 1 year. Babies who are picky with flavor may need to be transitioned to cow’s (whole) milk with a breastmilk/cow milk blend, then slowly cut back on the percentage of breastmilk. Although there’s nothing “magical” about 9 months, he clarified, I should still make every effort to bridge the gap between 8 and 9 months so that I don’t need to put her on formula to supplement. Adding formula after all these months of breastmilk would only “invite problems,” such as with digestive issues and taste adjustments. But he agrees with the lactation nurse to also increase Allie’s bottlefeedings of breastmilk if Allie seems hungry after feedings, saying increase her 7-oz bottles to 8 oz, and her 5-oz late-day bottle to 7. So now the pressure’s on a little bit. Must.produce.more.milk.
Re Nap Resistance
With the napping disruptions, Dr. T suggested that we do either the delayed-response method or cry-it-out method. Allie has enough memory now to realize that things are different between the time she went to nap and the time she wakes up, even in things like the lighting from the sun, which means she missed something. “Babies used to think nothing happens when they nap; now they know that life goes on outside of their napping, and they don’t want to be left out.” So they’ll fight sleep. He suggested a 20-25 minute consistent naptime routine that will tell her, “We’re about to have naptime,” and then soothe her to sleep and put her in her crib. If she cries or fights the soothing, to end it and put her in her crib and leave. If she cries in the crib, to let her cry herself to sleep so she knows there are no exceptions. The fact is, she IS tired at all the regular times, but she just has more motivation to fight it and keep playing now. Jayne did leave her in her crib awake during a late nap yesterday, and reported that Allie put herself down after less than a minute of complaining. “If you want her to stick to her regular naps, and most babies her age still need 2 naps a day, you need to do this now or it’ll be harder to get her to do this at 15 months.” He doesn’t think this will be very difficult, since Allie already sleeps 10-11 hours through the night so that means she wakes up on her own and puts herself back to sleep on her own. Now she just needs to learn that dark or not, sleeping time is sleeping time.
Re Teeth Care
As far as teeth go, Dr. T said we can now buy a baby toothbrush and start brushing her teeth and gums with just water one or two times a day. This isn’t for any intensive cleaning, but it’s to get her used to the sensation so she won’t fight the toothbrush when she actually DOES need to be brushed daily, after she’s a year old.
Re Allie’s Weight
Re Allie being slender, Dr. T said that babies being chubby at 4 months or so are a result of mom’s nutrition, what she ate while pregnant, what she ate while nursing, etc. At this point, the child’s build is based on her own metabolism taking over so we’re seeing the shape Allie is naturally inclining toward. I guess she’s not going to be a fat kid. Then again, I was rail-thin to the point of concern for my parents until 6 years old, when we immigrated to this country and I discovered processed fast foods. =P

Both of them were super-impressed with the fresh organic purees I’d been making and feeding Allie. Dr. T, who also specializes in child nutrition, says this is exactly the kind of nutrition a baby needs to be on at this age, fruits and veggies and some grains, and breastmilk. Kelsie said she wishes all mothers could be more like me. All I know is that I want what’s best for Allie and will do what’s in my control to contribute toward that, and I am SO LUCKY I have a support system who does exactly this, so that I don’t even know of any other way. My cousin Jennifer breastfed as long as she could until her body couldn’t/wouldn’t produce anymore when she went back to work. Flip flop girl (Christi) nursed, pumped, pureed, cooked, and has been an invaluable source of information and experience for me. College roommie Diana does all the same things and with a baby close to Allie’s age, we’ve swapped experiences and tips and suggestions. I think all this would’ve been a nearly unsurmountable learning curve if not for these women in my life.

Last Friday, I aged another year but I insist that I remain in my “mid-thirties.” I figure 38 would be “late thirties,” so I’ve still got a few years. It seems like just a couple of years ago that I was making this argument about being in my “mid-twenties.”

Mr. W kept asking me what I wanted for my birthday. There really wasn’t anything I could think of. If Allie weren’t in existence, or if Dodo weren’t doing pretty well, I may have a few birthday wishes. Not knowing what else to do, Mr. W ended up bringing home what seems like 2 dozen beautiful yellow and sunset roses from his Costco shopping trip, and taking a couple of hours off work so he could take me out to an early dinner while Jayne was still at home with Allie. We had a delicious adults-only meal at Seasons 52 at South Coast Plaza, and after that, walked into the attached swanky mall to Sephora, where after a looooong hunt (and being delayed half an hour by an annoying salesperson who insisted she was “like, like, a makeup artist, like, you know,” and wasted my time putting unwanted shades of eyeshadow on me that made me look like a zombie despite my saying I just want a simple matte gray to go), I found my gray eyeshadow. It was a Sephora store brand, cuz EVERY OTHER brand they carried was either metallic or glittery or shimmery. I got overexcited and selected 3, and Mr. W insisted on paying for them at the register. So yay for a very much appreciated birthday gift! And good gawd, when did some powder pigments start costing $13 each?!

I was SWAMPED trying to clean up a certain problematic floater’s mess with a 3-defendant attempted murder trial at work, but I don’t want to dwell on that. It’s a good thing that in this day of layoffs and difficulty in getting a job, that I’m gainfully employed. Unfortunately, certain others are also equally gainfully employed, even tho apparently I’M doing THEIR work. Okay, I’ll stop now. There were good things that happened at work on my bday, too. For instance:

My former court reporter Louise must’ve had early notice that she would be in our courthouse on my birthday, because she popped in prepared with three very sinful, very gourmet cakelets (yes, I just made that up) from The Great Dane Bakery for me. This place makes wedding cakes, so you can imagine how fancy her little cakes were. I was being floated all over the building, so I “didn’t get a chance” to share. In the afternoon, a few hours after consuming one such cakelet for lunch, my courtroom assistant noted after witnessing my 700 wpm phone conversation about a case, that I was on a sugar high. Later, the nausea and headache set in. Amazing how sensitive my system has become given my very careful eating ever since I started prepping for pregnancy (and now breastfeeding). That didn’t stop me from eating the other 2 cakelets. YUM.

Of course, given the above birthday indulgence yesterday, I had to go for a run this morning. Mr. W opted to not go, so he stayed home with Allie. Finding myself not accountable to anyone for my run, I got lazy and slowed to a walk shortly after starting up a hill. Suddenly, I looked up and saw this:

So I sighed, obeyed, and ran the rest of the way, not stopping again until I reached home. As my friend Danielle said, “Sign, signs, everywhere are signs.”

I must’ve earned my karma, because Allie was THE PERFECT BABY today. She took her first nap at 8:30a for an hour and a half; took her second nap at 12:30p for another hour and a half. Mr. W’s son came over during Allie’s 2nd nap and we all went out to sushi for Son’s birthday which was earlier in the week. Thanks to her great rest, Allie was so happy, she didn’t even get stranger-shy around Son like she did about a month ago. She was super well-behaved and patient while we ate at the sushi bar, too. After this early dinner, Mr. W and Son went to purchase Son’s bday gift, an iPad3. I swear, Mr. W should get commission for those things. (My mom called, and I told her what our plans were today. She said, “An iPad? And you only got eyeshadow for your birthday?!” I guess she’s a lurker on my social networking site.) I stayed home with Allie and got to enjoy her wonderful mood all day, giggling, playing, dancing, humming. It inspired me to take a 10-minute video of her doing basically nothing but hanging out, crawling and playing, enjoying herself and her blocks that I stack up and she likes to knock down, and a sturdy plastic bag that I inflated and ziplocked. (I know, I’m not supposed to let babies play with flimsy plastic bags or any plastic sheeting, but she was well-supervised.) She’s so like her brother Dodo. You can buy all the expensive stuff you want for them, but their favorite things will be plastic bags, cardboard boxes, and crinkly paper. Mr. W and Son got home from the Apple store in time to spend some time frolicking with Allie before her bedtime, which was also caught on my 10-minute video.

Allie went to bed for the night without a hitch, and Mr. W is spending quality time chatting with his son in the backyard. I finally have the computer to myself. Now, if only the screaming neighbor boys would stop making all the noise playing basketball on their driveway outside of Allie’s bedroom window, it would be a great evening. They kept Allie tossing and turning. I blame summer’s long days and Daylight Savings hours.

Since I’ve been back at work, I’ve been meeting Mr. W for lunch dates nearly every single day. It sort of replaces our dinner dates and outings that we used to have before Allie came along. I can’t stay out long because I have to return to work early to pump, so Mr. W is still gypped 1/3 of his lunch time. Now that my trial is in full swing, I’m going to give Mr. W his full lunchtime and just stay in and work through lunch. It’ll certainly help my waistline.

My angles have rounded off so much in the last 2 months after maternity leave ended that I was convinced I’d gained 15+ pounds. Thank you, all the readily available chocolates, cookies, junk food at work and sedentary job shackled to my desk. And thank you, rich savory lunches with Mr. W. (In case that didn’t translate well over the internet, imagine the “thank you” said sardonically.) I’ve had no time to gym as I’d expected to; during lunchtime I have to choose between eating, pumping, and gymming, and I’d chosen eating and pumping as the essentials and gymming is the luxury. Since I’m still producing milk regularly, my appetite has been voracious. And since Mr. W has not been gymming, either, he has not been focused on his diet. The result are dinners like earlier this week, when we decided to try out a new pizza joint with a buy-1-large-specialty-pizza, get-1-medium-1-topping-pizza-free. The pizzas are definitely smaller than we’d expected, and the slices are small as well, but 9 slices is 9 slices. I have never eaten 9 slices in 1 sitting before. I mentioned it at work as one of our trial attorneys were walking out the door, and he actually backed up, returned to the courtroom and said, “Did I hear you right, Cindy? NINE SLICES?” Yes. All me. 9 slices by myself.

I weighed myself this morning, cringing, gritting my teeth, trying not to scream or pass out. Okay, it wasn’t that bad; just mild curiosity. I was relieved. I’d only put on 6 lbs since my return to work, weighing in at 117. Body fat percentage at 22%, with muscle mass at only 40lbs, which I believe means the 6-lb-increase was pretty much all fat, but 22% is still acceptable to me. Even so, putting on 6 lbs in 2 months when I’m only 5’2 is not an ideal situation. (Here’s info from my prior weigh-in(s), the last when Allie was 4.5 months old, 2 months ago.)

Okay, junk food ban starting forthwith.

Wait, it’s ice cream’s 226th birthday today! Okay, junk food ban starting tomorrow.