Journey to and Through Motherhood: Lily's 45th Week (1/4/10

This week was a difficult one for driving. On Monday, we had a slippery commute in the morning due to a light snow that coated the roads and made them quite slick. I don’t think that I ever pushed the accelerator pedal on the highway, just alternated between braking and idling. It took forever to get to work. On Tuesday, we had another slow drive in to work as there was freezing rain in the morning. Wednesday was uneventful but then it took us a long time to drive home on Thursday as a ton of snow fell that day and continued into the night. Rachel was really hoping for a snow day on Friday but had no such luck.

I took down our indoor Christmas decorations on Monday. I was sad to see them go but was glad to get the tree down as it takes up a lot of space in our living room. Plus, Amber kept attacking it and I was getting sick of putting the bottom branches back on the tree. At least she didn’t take down very many ornaments this year as I baby-proofed (and kitty-proofed) the tree quite well.

I could feel myself getting sick all week. My head was stuffy since Monday and on Thursday night I had a hard time getting to sleep because I couldn’t stop shivering. Then I kept waking up because I was either too hot or too cold. To add to my sleep deprivation, I had to get up extra early on Friday because we had to leave for work an hour earlier than normal due to an early morning meeting that we needed extra time to get to because of all the snow. It was too early for Lily to wake up so we just took her straight from bed and put her in the carseat in her pajamas to go to Kirsten’s. Right before I left Kirsten’s house, Lily woke up in her carseat a bit confused about where she was. Poor baby! Dr. Chan did a presentation at our meeting about pulmonary function testing in the big picture of what it means for patient care and research. I thought it was good in that it reminded us that what we do is important and has a real impact on a patient’s course of treatment. Data that we gather also fuels a lot of important research. Midway through the afternoon, my head finally cleared up which felt great but then my throat started feeling funny and I began to get hoarse. By the time I picked Lily up, I was sounding squeaky. Lily had a fun day with Kirsten and had peanut butter for the first time. Kirsten felt bad that she fed it to her after finding out that I hadn’t introduced it yet but I was just relieved to know that she was not allergic to peanuts. You have to find out sometime or another! Rachel requested Red Robin for dinner so we ate out then all went to bed early. I barely had a voice by the time I went to bed and had trouble sleeping because I kept waking up every time I swallowed because it hurt so much.

On Saturday morning, I woke up with no voice. I felt fine except for the fact that I could not speak so Lily and I went to our very first Aqua Tots class. She absolutely loved it! She was a little whiny and clingy when we first got in the water but that was more due to the fact that she had fallen asleep in the car on the way there so I had to wake her up and strip her down then head right into the pool as we were almost late so I think that she was groggy and disoriented. Once we did a few circles around the shallow end of the pool, she got really excited. The instructor had us walk with the kids on our hips first, taking them lower and lower into the water. Then, once they were comfortable, we had them hold onto our necks and kick their feet. The kids in the class ranged from 9 months to 2.5 years so the younger ones like Lily needed us to guide their legs into kicking at first. Lily really got into the kicking and after a few minutes, I could hold her out away from my body. She kicked her feet and slammed her arms into the water, delighted at all of the splashing. She giggled hysterically the whole time! The instructor had us float the kids on their backs as well but Lily didn’t like that as much since she couldn’t really splash that way. The class was only a half hour long so after some playing and a song together, we all got out of the pool. While I was drying her off, Lily kept pointing at the pool and babbling loudly. I think that she was telling me that she had a lot of fun and wanted to go back in the water! Lily and I had worn our bathing suits under our clothes so it was really easy for me to strip the both of us in the locker room before class. Changing after class was not so easy. There was no place to change Lily so I had to dress her on a towel on the locker room floor then she kept trying to crawl off while I got changed. Thankfully, another mother from the class who had an older child offered to hold her while I got dressed. I was very grateful. I think that I will bring Paul next week so that he can take pictures of her like the other dads did during class then he can be in charge of her while I get dressed afterward. When Lily and I got home from class, we were exhausted so we took a nice long nap together. After our nap, I was still tired so I had Paul watch her and I kept sleeping for most of the afternoon. Apparently I was sicker than I thought. Paul brought her in to take a late afternoon nap with me then we all got up around 7pm.

Sunday was a rough day. First, I woke up with my eyes stuck shut. Pink eye, great! Plus I still didn’t have a voice. Paul and I cleaned the downstairs together then he took down the outdoor Christmas decorations. When he came back inside, I cleaned the upstairs. While doing so, I found a bunch of paint stains in Rachel’s room again. She knows that she has never been allowed to use paint in her room yet there was paint all over her bookshelf, the wall, and the carpet. I was infuriated with her and frustrated that I had no voice to express myself with. Later, we had to drag information out of her about whether she had homework to do. Finally, she admitted that she had math homework that she needed us to check. She had done it all wrong but was super oppositional, wouldn’t listen, and just kept pushing Paul’s buttons when he tried to help her. Then Rachel finally showed us her student progress folder that she had in her backpack since Friday but “forgot” to show us. We were proud to see that she is doing a lot better in Math but were stunned to learn that she is failing Language Arts. This is by far her best and easiest class but she is getting an E simply because she didn’t bother to turn in four big assignments. We were very disappointed.

Lily was really hungry all weekend. She nursed a lot and ate a ton of solids. She mostly wanted to eat whatever I ate which included peanut butter on toast, hummus (I can’t believe it but she loved it!), and chicken enchiladas. Maybe her increased nursing this week will help with my milk production. I am concerned because my production is still really low. I can only pump about 8 ounces a day but she drinks about 18 ounces while at Kirsten’s. Since I was sick this week, my production was even lower, only about 4 ounces a day! We have been making up the difference between what I pump and what she needs with my huge surplus of frozen breastmilk for the past few months but now we are almost out. I am at a loss about what to do. I really want to breastfeed her until at least a year of age but just can’t produce enough breastmilk to use it exclusively. The lactation consultant had recommended power pumping which didn’t help in the past so her other suggestion was to try a combination of two herbs, Fenugreek and Blessed Thistle. I bought Fenugreek earlier in the week and have been taking that but I can’t find Blessed Thistle anywhere. In the meantime, I had Kirsten try to introduce formula but Lily completely refused it all week. She used to take it just fine when we gave her an occasional bottle of formula but now she won’t take it, even mixed with breastmilk. She would either sniff it and refuse it or sip it then angrily spit it out and throw the bottle. Kirsten said that you can introduce cow’s milk at 10 months but I wanted to wait until after Lily’s doctor appointment next week to get Dr. Sachdev’s approval, especially since Lily had such a hard time in the past whenever I consumed dairy. However, we were getting desperate so I bought her some DHA fortified whole milk and she tried it mixed with breastmilk on Friday. She drank it and seemed to like it and, thankfully, didn’t seem to have any GI issues afterward.

Lily still loves doing circles around our house with her walker and is getting faster and faster. She has been using her doggy walker at Kirsten’s all week. She continued to say “whazzis” and “whozzis” all week and says “mama” more and more. Paul swears that she said, “I want mama,” on Sunday. She sometimes mimics when you say “hi” and “bye” but doesn’t say them unprompted. She also started waving. It is so cute!

Here are some pictures from this week.

Lily getting up close and personal with Blue's Clues on Wednesday evening:

Pointing to the screen:

"Whazzis," she asked:

Making sure that we saw that it was mail time on the show:

Lily playing with her favorite toy. I always have the tune that it plays stuck in my head. It drives me crazy:

Reiley taking a nap on the snowman pillow. This is Lily's favorite pillow. She always points to each snowman and asks, "Whazzis?":

Lily passed out on Paul:

Lily loves to eat bananas and insists on taking her own bites, not having pieces cut up for her. The problem is that she always wants to jam the entire banana down her throat so it is a bit tricky feeding her:

Mmmm:

Big bite:

Chew it up:

That's better:

Yummy:

Lily discovered the cat door this week as a magical place where cats come and go. She crawled over to it constantly to see what would pop out. Here is a sequence of an encounter between her and Amber on Saturday morning which Lily found to be quite delightful: