So Tired

I've been really, really tired the last few days. I'm the mother of a 16 month old who has yet to sleep through the night- I know tired. This has been an especially tired few days. At first I figured I was just recovering from the effects of the stealth UTI I had last week. But those symptoms cleared up quickly, once I got on antibiotics, so my suspicions turned elsewhere... to the antibiotics. It turns out "excessive tiredness" is one of the possible side effects. Today, I called my doctor, and got permission to stop taking the pills. I am hoping to be back to my only moderately tired usual self soon.

One of the other things that may be due to either the UTI or the antibiotics is the drop in milk supply I'm experiencing. I'm pumping 2 ounces less per day right now (in my sole pumping), and have now gone through all of my frozen reserves. This would have bothered me a lot more earlier. Now I just think "hmm, I was wondering what I was going to do with those reserves, anyway." I'm almost done pumping. We will keep nursing, but Pumpkin only nurses one time during the "work day" hours when I'm home on the weekends, anyway.

I had been trying to decide when I'd quit pumping, and had finally settled on stopping when Pumpkin is about 17 months old. The deciding factor was day care. This didn't really surprise me, since day care determined when we switched from a bottle to a sippy cup. On the note telling us about the rate hikes for the new "school year", the assistant director had written that our rates would drop a bit when Pumpkin was 18 months old and moved up to the next room. I learned my lesson from the great sippy cup campaign , and wanted to have a lot of lead time to make any adjustments required for Pumpkin's advancement. It turns out that the main differences between her current toddler room and the 18 month old room are that they all eat the same lunch (provided by day care) and that they drink from regular cups instead of sippy cups.

Pumpkin is not the greatest eater, so I'm happy to abdicate responsibility for making her lunch. If the fine folks at day care can get her to eat whatever they cook for lunch, more power to them. The assistant director told me that they handle the switch to regular cups, and I didn't have to worry about it. I actually wasn't too worried, because Pumpkin loves to drink from a regular cup- she's just not very good at it. She tends to spill half of whatever she's drinking all over herself. I got an image in my head of Pumpkin doing this with a cup of my hard earned breastmilk, and I knew that I finally had my answer of when I'd stop pumping.

Zenbit: Cultural Exchange

If you zoom in on the detail on this plate, you'll see that Jesus has different facial hair than what you're probably used to.

The Portugese converted some of the people they conquered to Christianity, and some of those people made fine dinnerware to send back to Europe.


Location: Macau Museum, Macau
Date: March 29, 2006

Sixteen Candles

Well, she'd have sixteen candles if I gave her a candle for every month. Pumpkin is 16 months old now. She had her 16 month checkup today, and was pronounced to be healthy from head to toe and on track developmentally. She's average height, but on the skinny side (as the doctor noted, while watching Pumpkin bustle around the exam room while we were asking our questions, she is quite active). She has 10-15 words or signs, which is more than enough to avoid worry. Probably the only things we need to worry about are her teeth. She has a lot of them. She likes to brush her teeth- she happily toddles off down the hall to the bathroom when we announce it is time to do so- but her technique still needs work. And then there is that middle of the night nursing. I try to get her to drink water after it, but some nights, she is just not interested, and I am not at my parenting best at 2 a.m., so I tend to give in easily so that I can stumble back to bed.

While I was preparing for her appointment, I flipped through some of the earlier pages of the notebook I have used for all things pregnancy and baby related. I have some pages devoted to my favorite memories from various time periods. I plan to eventually use these in a scrapbook I'll make for Pumpkin. You know, in my copious spare time.

These memories made me smile when I came across them last night. Here are some highlights:

• Pregnancy- feeling kicks and hiccups, and eating all the ice cream I wanted
• Birth- what a great coach Hubby was
• Newborn (0-6 weeks)- the way she slept with her legs rotated to one side, and her elaborate wake up routine (it involved a lot of stretches and grimaces)
• 6 weeks - 3 months- the feeling of her sleeping against my chest, and the cute, high-pitched whine she had when she wanted more milk and I was too slow in providing it
• 3 months - 6 months- the smiles, the way she reached out to drink from my glass, and her "regal" pose in her car seat (with her arms draped onto the side of the seat)
• 6 - 9 months- the laughs and the way she played with her own hair while nursing (it made her look like a little monkey)
• 9 - 12 months- how much she loved to wave hello and good-bye, and the beaming smile she would get when I would clap for one of her accomplishments
• 12 - 18 months (so far)- big hugs, little kisses, her excitement at seeing birds, and how fun it is when she learns a new word

The notebook also has our early logs of her wet and dirty diapers, but I'll spare you the highlights of those. The notebook lacks a record of the worst things about each age. Perhaps I'll put that in this blog at some point, so that I don't get a nasty surprise if I ever decide to have another baby. Or perhaps I'll just let those memories fade, and only keep the good ones.

The Good and the Bad

I haven't posted yet this week because I've been sick. Apparently, childbirth can rearrange your nerves to the point that you can get a urinary tract infection and not know until you have a fever of 104 and end up at urgent care. Just another of those little things they leave out of the motherhood brochures!

The motherhood brochures would definitely want to include this story, though: we've been doing sign language with Pumpkin. She's learned several signs, and also some spoken words, from her Signing Time videos. There are many benefits to sign language, but one that you probably haven't thought about is the ability to "speak" with your mouth full. A few days ago, while Pumpkin was nursing, she looked up at me and did the sign she uses for more/I like that. If that wouldn't melt your heart as a mother, I don't know what would. Her favorite sign is still the one for "bird", though.

Zenbit: Above the Clouds

Location: Above Mt. Rainier, Washington
Date: July 27, 2008