Category Archives: Life

B.I.B.

Posted in Isla, Life, Mom Talk by

Time Magazine, May 2012

This magazine cover sparked a lot of controversy over breastfeeding and where mom’s should “draw the line” when it comes to nursing your child … 

They (medical professionals, health organizations, people in general) say that “breast is best” (B.I.B.) when it comes to feeding your baby. As soon as possible, after your baby is born you’re encouraged to breastfeed your baby. Lactation consultants are brought in to make sure your baby is “latching on” correctly and getting the nutrients it needs.

It’s recommended that you breastfeed for a minimum of six months. After that, I’m guessing you can do what you want – Transition to formula, switch to milk, whatever.

I’ve noticed recently that there has been some discussion on how long you should breastfeed your child for. I’m no nutritionist, so I have no idea how long is “long enough,” but I wonder if there’s a certain age where you should draw the line. I’ve heard of 3-year-olds still being breastfed, which I find a little strange, but if that’s what the mother wants to do, then that’s fine.

Breastfeeding Isla until she’s old enough to tell me she’s hungry (and not just in the “crying because she’s hungry” way) isn’t something that I plan to do. To be honest, I don’t know when I’m going to ween her off of the boob, but I don’t think I’ll keep doing it once she’s a year old. At her doctor appointment the other day, the doctor asked if I was still nursing her and if I had given her any solid food yet. I told him I was and that I hadn’t given her any solids yet. (I’m afraid of the diapers, to be completely honest, and how it will affect her tummy.) Because she’s gaining weight wonderfully, he told me to just keep giving her breast milk, so I will. I digress …

Quite a few mom’s I know have breastfed for a year or longer. Like I said, I don’t know if I want to do it for more than a year. Yes, I’m aware of all the “goodness” that’s in breast milk, but I was only breastfed for about 3 months and I turned out just fine, as do babies who are given formula from Day 1. I personally don’t think I’m going to depriving my daughter of anything if I choose to ween her after a year. I’m sure other mom’s will be all judgey if I stop breastfeeding earlier than a year, but I never claimed to be some kind of Super Mom with magical powers to breast feed forever. I’d like to get a little bit of my freedom back and not have to rely on my boobs to feed Isla every 3-4 hours. Yeah, I could pump, but I do enjoy the bonding time we have while I’m nursing her. Plus – pumps are CRAZY expensive and I’m not willing to dish out the dough just yet.

I miss eating spicy food and strawberries. I miss having the occasional boozy drink and not having to worry about whether or not the alcohol has passed through my system before nursing Isla. But – I won’t stop nursing her just because I want a spicy burrito or Caesar at the pub. I know that “breast is best” and that Isla needs the goodness from breast milk, but I know I can’t – and won’t – breast feed her forever.

I apologize for the disorganization of this post, but it’s something that’s it’s been on my mind and I just needed to do a “brain dump.”

What are your thoughts on “prolonged” breast feeding? How long do you think is “long enough?”

A Day in the Life

Posted in A Day in the Life, Life by

Back before I had Isla, my day-to-day routine was pretty straightforward: Get up, go to work, come home. Now that she’s entered into my life, my schedule is all over the place and totally revolves around her. Here’s what Friday looked like for me:

5 am. – Kyle crawls back into bed for 20 minutes before he has to go to work. He asks me how I’ve slept and if Lovey was down for the whole night, both are answered with “Yes.” (Yay!)

5:20 am- Kyle kisses me goodbye as he leaves for work.

6:30 am –  I hear Isla start to whine over the baby monitor. It’s sporadic, so I lay in bed for a few minutes and then get up around 6:40. She’s not making any noise, so I let Daphne outside, make my coffee and grab the newspaper. I can hear Isla sucking her thumb, not making a fuss, so I take a chance at eating a bowl of cereal.

7 am – Isla is now steadily crying, so I let Campbell out of his crate and out for a pee before I get Isla out of her crib. I say good morning to her and ask her if she had sweet dreams, to which she responds with a big, goofy smile, and then I change her diaper.

7:15 am – I get settled to nurse Isla for her “breakfast.” This consists of “setting up” on the couch in the living room: nursing pillow, receiving blanket, coffee, morning news on the TV. Lucky for me she can latch on with little to no assistance these days, so I can start this blog post :) I also decide that I’m tired of the green colour on my blog, and so I start to refresh its look. (Not to be confused with redesigned, because I’m not that awesome)

7:50 am – Isla seems to be done the first half of her breakfast as she’s fast asleep in my lap.

8:35-8:40 am – I gently move Isla off of my lap so I can feed the dogs, but she wakes up. After feeding the dogs, I feed Isla the 2nd “half” of her breakfast.

9:30 am – Isla FINALLY finishes eating, and I haven’t accomplished much in updating the look of my blog. Now contemplating hopping in the shower since Isla seems to be asleep.

9:45 am – Isla wakes up. My window to shower in peace has closed.

9:55 am – Decide to chance it and toss Isla into her crib so I can shower. If I don’t do it now, it will never happen.

10:25 am – Finished showering, getting dressed, etc. Isla’s still happily in her crib, playing away, so I pull something out for dinner.

10:30-10:45 am – I hear Isla fill up her diaper, so it’s time for her to get dressed for the day. She spits up all over herself, luckily after I take off her sleeper, so I wipe her down and dry her off. It’s bath night tonight, so I’m not too worried about how bad she smells today. I put her down into her crib to see if she’ll have a nap.

She thinks she’s SO funny when she throws up all over herself!

10:55 am – No luck on the nap. She just wants to hang out, so I put her in her swing and she watches TV with me. There is nothing on TV, but we end up watching Restaurant: Impossible. Robert Irvine is an ENORMOUS man.

11:10 am – She falls asleep in her swing. I contemplate what on earth to do with my time and opt to make spaghetti sauce for the crock pot.

At Kyle’s request, it’s spaghetti for dinner! My house smells amazing as a result.

11:50 am – I finished getting dinner in the crock pot, and just in time too as Isla seems to be waking up. I’m going to attempt to eat some lunch before she really wakes up and wants to have her own lunch. I decided to give Isla some tummy time while I ate and she quite enjoyed herself:

Not too long after I took this, she pushed off the arm of the couch and did a face plant into the cushion. Thank goodness she was facing towards the middle of the couch instead of the floor!

12:27 pm – After “letting her cry” for about 5 minutes, it gets more and more intense and I figure Isla’s pretty hungry. Lunch time for Isla!

1:05 pm – She’s done eating, so I attempted to put her down for a nap since she seemed to be sleeping. As soon as I put her down – SUPRISE!! Eye wide open. Ugh. I grabbed the baby monitor, went and got the mail, pulled in the garbage & recycling bins, and now we’re watching Ellen on the couch.

3 pm – Isla has had a power nap after watching a bit of Ellen, and now she’s watching me blog and browse the interwebs while sitting in my lap. I’ve also learned that between the time Ellen is over and until about 5 pm when the early news comes on, there is nothing on TV.

4:10 pm – It’s time for Isla’s “dinner.” I realize I’ve done pretty much nothing today and I must seem like a really boring person to ya’ll.

5:50 pm – Isla finished eating. No, she didn’t eat for almost 2 hours straight. She powered out and had a nap in between. Now we await the arrival of my mom!

6:10 pm – My mom arrives for a visit and to give Isla her bath! It’s not that I can’t bathe my daughter, it’s just that Isla loves it when my mom gives her a bath!

6:45 pm – After having a little visit, spitting up all over herself, and pooping up and out of her diaper, it’s officially bathtime for Isla. Daphne also makes her way into our tiny guest bathroom and “helps” with bath time.

Isla loves watching Daphne from the tub!

6:50 pm – Campbell starts to mope since it’s getting close to his dinner time. I kindly remind him that he still has 40 minutes.

7 pm – Bath time is over and Isla is all ready for bed! I’m guessing that she’s going to need to be changed out of her sleeper at least once since she’s a puke machine. Amazingly, she only needed one outfit change all day today! Very rarely does this happen, so I’m pretty stoked on that.

7:20 pm – Kyle texts me and says that they’re running late. I’m starving, so I decide to go ahead and have dinner without him. My pasta sauce is delicious, IMHO.

7:30 pm – It’s feeding time at the OK Corral. Daphne spazzes out while I give Campbell his food, and Campbell patiently/droolingly waits for me to give him the signal that it’s okay to eat his dinner. Only a couple of drool strands fall while I take his photos before I tell him to eat!

It’s hard to tell in this photo, but there are two HUGE drool strands coming off of his mouth.

8 pm – Kyle arrives home from work! He eats dinner while my mom and I just hang out with Isla and watch “Say Yes to the Dress Atlanta.”

8:45 pm – My mom decides to head home for the evening, and I get ready to give Isla her “bedtime snack” at 9 pm. I hope that when she’s all done she’ll go right to bed.

10 pm – Kyle heads to bed and I try to put Isla down into her crib as she seems to be asleep. No such luck! Her eyes pop WIDE open and she starts thrashing her legs about. I pick her up and we snuggle in the gliding chair to get her to go back to sleep.

10:30 pm – Success! Isla is asleep, and I go to bed.

Wow, my life is a snore-fest!

Missing Her

Posted in Emotions, Family, Life by

It’s been six months since my grandma passed away and it still hurts so much to think that she’s no longer with us.

I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately; I don’t know if it’s the post-pregnancy hormones, but often the smallest thing triggers a memory and I’ll start to cry. For example, I was watching Long Island Medium and I just started sobbing. Maybe it was because the people on the show were able to get some closure after the death of a loved one, I don’t know.

I’m not saying that I didn’t have closure when my grandma passed. We had an amazing relationship and never had to bury the hatchet on anything. Her last words to me were that she loved me so much. I just miss her terribly. I don’t know how my grandpa can do it, coping so seemingly well. Mind you – he’s been working SO much, keeping his mind on things other than the fact that the love of his life was taken from him so suddenly.

This time of year my grandparents were always busy getting ready for their annual trip down south, but no matter how busy they were, my grandma would always make sure to make the time to say “Goodbye” before they left. It was around this time last year when I told my grandma that she was going to become a great-grandma, and she was SO excited! I had to remind her to keep it a secret until December, after they left for the south, and I know it was so hard for her, being the social butterfly that she was. (I swear she spent more time on Facebook than I did!)

The very last time I saw my grandma, I was still pregnant. Although she couldn’t talk because of her stroke, I could see in her eyes how excited she was to see my baby bump, how she looked at it and gently rubbed it with the little amount of strength she had. It hurts to know that she never got to meet her great-granddaughter; Isla would have learned so much from her Nana. I’m glad my grandpa is around enough to see Isla grow, and I can see the love in his eye when he looks at her.

I know you’re not really supposed to stop missing someone, but I know it’s supposed to get easier with time. I’m not sure how much time I’ll need, but I’ll get there eventually I guess.