Slacker Sunday

Well I've really been slacking on this blog lately. I keep this blog for several different audiences (family, friends, random googlers, myself), and I like that it has several different purposes (share photos of Julia, chat about life, be informative, and let me vent and work things out like a journal). Whenever I think about what I want to post, though, I seem to always think something like, "Oh, my family won't find that interesting at all - only friends," or "That's going to be really boring for everyone else." That - plus Season 5 of Nip/Tuck that we just discovered on Netflix - has led to me pretty much posting nothing lately. It's turning into an all or nothing thing ("If I can't come up with a post that's interesting for everyone, I'll just skip it tonight.") and that's the whole anti-point of this blog. I'm trying to make my life about doing something, even if it's not everything, and especially even if it's not perfect. Light one candle at a time, instead of feeling like I have to light them all and end up sitting there cursing the dark.

So, I'm sorry if something is boring, or if you're really sick of looking at 86,000 photos of my baby. But we'll just have to take the bad with the good, won't we? I mean, that's life, and it's ridiculous for me to try to make my blog anything but. I was kind of thinking of subtitling the blog, "Keeping it real, with a healthy dose of gratitude." I know I'm so blessed, but that doesn't mean everything's great all the time, and conversely, even when things suck, there's still a lot that I'm thankful for.

Anyways. Knock on wood, but Julia might be at the end of her sleep regression. Two nights ago she slept until 4:30, and last night she slept until 6:30. I'm not ready to declare victory yet, but I'm optimistic. Napping is still all over the place, and almost a little more frustrating than before; at least with her half-hour naps, she was predictable and I could plan around her. Now it's just a total crapshoot every day. She can still only stay awake for about two hours max, but I have no idea how long any of her naps are going to be, so it's really hard to schedule anything outside the house. Plus, I'm really second-guessing myself on what she needs, sleep- and schedule-wise, which makes things a little more stressful for both of us. But, if we're past the transition phase of these sleep issues, I can start working on getting her more on a schedule. We'll see how the next few days nights go.

I'm also itching to start her on some rice cereal. She's gotten pretty good at "drinking" breastmilk off of a spoon, and I think she's ready for a challenge. But, we're going to visit my parents in about a week, so she'll be away from home for about ten days (and from me for five - sob!), and it just doesn't make sense to try to start something new until we're back. And then at that point, we'll be about two weeks away from six months (holy crap - six months already?!), and I might just try to keep her exclusively on breastmilk until that mark. Probably not, because what difference will those two weeks really make? But I'm considering it. At that point, we're planning to transition to a little bit of formula and we'll start solids in earnest.

We like giving her a bottle at night right before bed. My milk supply is pretty low at that point, and I like knowing she gets a full feeding before bedtime, and I think R likes having the chance to feed her on a daily basis. The problem is, I'm really struggling to pump enough for that bottle each day. I was trying to pump at night, but usually getting 2-3 oz versus the 4+ that she takes in that last bottle. I tried pumping twice at night, but was still barely breaking even, plus that just sucks to be sitting there glued to the pump practically all evening when that's my only true free time of the day. So I'm back to pumping during the day; my supply is so much better in the mornings that it's no problem to get 4+ oz earlier in the day. I'm pumping a little here and there - whenever I can find a free 10 minutes - to make up her nightly bottle, and then once again at night to get an extra few ounces for cushion and to empty things out before bed. Again, though, this sucks. I don't have many 10 minute breaks during the day, and it sucks to spend them pumping. I can keep it up until we get back from our trip, then I think I'm done with the daily pumping. I'll dip into the freezer stash for those extra couple ounces until Julia's six months, then we'll just use formula to make up any deficiency. I still feel kind of failure-like for not being able to adequately feed my baby, but if we can hit that six-month mark, I'll also feel like objectively I did a pretty decent job. I'm still planning to nurse but we'll probably start gradually weaning her onto formula and solids.

In non-baby news, the weather has finally started to get better here, and my foot is also finally feeling better, so we're heading out to the park today! R and I used to go hiking all the time with Scrappy last year, and I really miss that. I'm hoping we can start taking Julia and Scraps out for walks in the park again, and when things finally dry up a bit (our backyard is seriously like a bog right now) maybe get back into easy hiking. Fingers crossed!

And, for anyone who's bothered to read this far:

Enjoying the new chair and Freddie the Firefly.

Checkin' out the view from way up there.

This photo totally cracks me up. I guess this is her "Okay now I'm freaked out get me out of here!" face.