Hot date

Yesterday we had a lunch date. A friend had given us a gift card for a meal and an offering of babysitting back in March. We finally took her up on it. Yesterday we counted the number of time's D has been baby sat. 14 times in 13 months. We clearly need to work on that since some of those were "Please babysit while I work" or "Please babysit because I have the stomach flu" and not enough of them were please babysit while I enjoy a nice quiet time with my wife. It's great to share a meal without having to make sure that 1) D is happy and not screaming, 2) D is eating, 3) D is not making too big of a mess. We just relaxed and talked to each other and enjoyed our good food.

We went to Great Sage Restaurant, a vegan restaurant with an interesting brunch menu. Since we had a big gift card, we splurged on a Reuben made of tempeh, Huevos Rancheros made of tofu, and for dessert, walnut praline pancakes. Yum!

Exploding in skills

My baby girl is exploding in skills. It's amazing what happens at one year!

• She's talking - each day a new word. Recently added words include all done, water, night night, up, doggie, Angel (our dog's name), apple, hi, duck, ball. By recently I mean in the last five days!
• She's signing - in the past two weeks she's learned the signs for all done, milk, and please.
• She's building with legos and blocks when before she just knocked things down.
  
• She's mimicking everything we do.
• She played peek-a-boo to entertain a five-month old baby!
• She's learning to eat with a spoon and does a decent (though still quite messy) job of it.
  
• She'll walk any day. Right now she just needs to hold on with one hand and she can walk for a long time.
  

I'm beaming with pride. Yesterday when she held up her hands and so clearly said 'Up' and I almost cried. I did cry a little when she said 'duck'. I wasn't prepared for her to learn everything in two weeks. I thought there would be more build up. It's amazing!

Back to the RE

On Friday we went back to the RE for the first time since I was six weeks pregnant. She was very happy to see us and wanted to see baby pictures. Of course she said D was gorgeous. Her first question was 'Are you still breastfeeding?' I told her I was weaning and should be done by August. She said 'Okay, that's when we'll start.' Definitely got me motivated to wean.

Next cycle we will do an HSG x-ray to see if any tubes are blocked from scar tissue from my c-section, which happens maybe 20% of the time. If no tubes are blocked, then she doesn't see any reason that I will have difficulty getting pregnant. If tubes are blocked, well, then, we'll go from there.

Very good visit and now we are starting again!

Weaning progress

This weekend I worked on eliminating the afternoon nursing session and it went pretty well. When she would ask to nurse I would offer her a sippy cup or some food and she happily took it, even while sitting in my lap. It seems she didn't want to nurse, she was just hungry. My breast were pretty full and in pain by Sunday morning but we worked through it and this morning I was less full. My body is adjusting. Next weekend we will work on eliminating the before nap nursing. I'm guessing that one will be more difficult.

This is my last week to pump at work. Just once per day to ease my body off of it. I've been doing this for a year. I don't even know what to do with all of this extra time now that I'm not pumping 4 times a day! Maybe that's why I'm blogging again.

Lost memories

We went to FL to visit family for our daughter's first birthday. We visited my family first and then K's family (about 2.5 hours apart). Somewhere along the way our memory card got corrupted and we lost all the pictures from K's family, but somehow retained all of the pictures from my family. This is so sad. This was D's first time to meet her grandfather, she spent time with her grandma, aunt, older cousins, went to the beach, ate birthday cake. All of it is gone. We sent the card away for recovery and they were unable to recover it. We are going to try one more company but the chances are slim given the history so far. K's aunt took some pictures so we're going to try to get copies of those, but much of it will likely be lost. Very sad.

Closing the B&B

We have a two bedroom condo. Space is tight but we're committed to making it work because we love the location. It's been working for us okay until recently when our toddler's toys got larger and larger (table & chairs, rocking horse, piano, walker, ride on car, play table). We've become over run with toys, and our toddler is running us over with toys, and our home is feeling smaller and smaller.

We have a futon in our toddler's room. It's an old futon and it was our bed for a year early in our relationship nine years ago when we were in grad school until we saved up enough money for a real bed. We keep it for company, which we've had a ton of in the past year since D was born - K's mom (3 times), D's godmother A (2 times), my parents (2 times), K's aunt and three teenage cousins, my sister & family, our friends from NY, maybe others I'm forgetting. We've been a revolving B&B (literally - I usually make breakfast for guests), and it's been awesome seeing everyone. If you want to see your family and friends, have a baby. But that seems to be tapering off. Last week A left and we don't have any plans for anyone to visit. My sister is coming in July but she's staying in a hotel (her husband thinks our home is too crowded for their family of four and he's probably right). K's mom is coming in the fall but nothing specific.

So we're closing the B&B. We're getting rid of the futon. We're moving D's big toys into her bedroom. D's room will be used for more than just sleeping and changing. We're reclaiming our living space. We're going to be able to breathe again.

But first we have to figure out how to get rid of the futon. Not in our small Honda Fit. Freecycle, anyone?

I'm back

I'm back to blogging because I'm back at trying to conceive. Our first born is one and fabulous and makes us happy every day. And now we want to try to for number two. Trying to conceive makes me want to blog because I can't talk about it. We're not telling many that we are trying and once we get pregnant (fingers crossed) we won't be telling people for a while. And there are a lot of emotions/feelings around it, so I'm going to use this space to write them down. I don't know if there are any readers out there anymore. Maybe somebody who forgot remove me from their google reader will see this message and maybe even care what I have to say. Here are some thoughts I have roaming around my head.

1. I can't believe we are really starting this. There was this feeling of accomplishment after getting pregnant last night that was like 'oh, it's done. we won't have to do that again.' Last time there was such a build up, where I tracked my temperature and peed on sticks for months. This time it's like, oh, we're going to get started soon. I wonder if I even ovulate. The goal is to start trying late August/September. I tried peeing on sticks last month but we were on vacation and I could never get it right. So I'm trying again. I'm on day 12. No positive yet, but I would expect it in a couple of days based on my old cycle. I'm not taking my temperature since that just caused more stress than it provided information.

2. We have an appointment with our Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) this Friday. We haven't seen her since I was 6 weeks pregnant. I have a midwife appointment a few weeks later. I haven't seen them since my 6 week follow-up. This makes it seem really real.

3. We had always planned to wait a year and then start trying again. For the first 8-9 months this really scared me. I couldn't imagine being pregnant and caring for an infant. But then my baby got older and started sleeping through the night and things got easier. And I would see pregnant women and think "Wouldn't that be nice?" And these feelings really surprised me. I started longing to be pregnant again! And then two weeks ago our friends gave birth to a baby boy. And the mother started asking questions about her negative feelings about the baby and about lack of sleep and constant breastfeeding and I got a little scared again. But at least now I know that it really does get better, but wow, that's going to be hard.

4. I'm trying to wean baby #1 so that I can get pregnant easier. I feel that I've already got a hard time getting pregnant given that I'm using frozen sperm so I had better do everything I can to increase my chances. So far I'm reducing the amount of breast milk sent to daycare (supplementing with whole milk) and decreasing my pumping sessions at work. By the end of next week I should be done with pumping. Then we just need to deal with the home front. How do you put a baby to sleep without milk? Don't know, I've never tried it. I know it will be hard for a few weeks (we went through night weaning at about 9-10 months so we have an idea) but she'll get over it. I'm just dreading trying. I'm not as in love with nursing as a lot of people I know but there will be things I will miss. I won't miss pumping, or feeding in public, or stopping everything to feed her. I will miss waking up in the morning and bringing her to our bed and the three of us laying together while she nurses. This is my favorite part of the day. I will miss the cuddles because in general she's not very cuddly. She's too busy on the go. It's been a good/hard almost thirteen months of breastfeeding and it's time to move on.

5. Not on the baby making front, I'm in love with my one year old. She turned one just a few weeks ago. She's almost walking, she saying a few words, does a few signs. She's really developing a sense of humor. She's adventurous. She's my doll (as my grandpa used to call me). Here are a couple of recent pictures.

Loose Ends

I haven't posted since June. My 7 month old baby is beautiful, well, and my sweet joy. There are so many things that I could post about, things I've thought about posting about, such as: postpartum depression (not full blown, but it was definitely something in the first couple of months), breastfeeding and lack of sleep in the first couple of months (and how this causes depression), acid reflux and trips to the hospital with a four week old baby, asthma, going back to work (the mixed feelings, the tears, the relief of having something to do each day), daycare (good day cares, bad day cares (really bad day cares), the trouble with finding a daycare), house guest after house guest, multiple long term visits from my mother-in-law, money woes, planning for #2, vacationing with a baby, solid foods, colds, sharing a room with the baby (and when it's time to stop), people's opinions (how they want to give them all of the time, and what they say when you don't agree), gallstone surgery & the stomach flu, the best Christmas of my life, trying to feed a very hungry six month old baby with a growing appetite and a depleting milk supply, decisions about shots, transitions to solids (the fun & joy, the new fears), the pressures of keeping up my milk supply while knowing I'm the only one that can, how wonderful baby smiles are, the beautiful sound of a baby laughing, who's the mom questions, the filthy state of our home, the lack of attention our dog gets, space issues with our tiny condo, a baby who probably won't crawl because she hates spending time on her tummy, how much fun it is now that she's aware and interactive and plays games and makes noises and expresses her opinion, how she looks at K and starts laughing right away (K's much funnier than I am), how she reaches for me (and me only) whenever she is upset and to put her back to sleep at night, how it's 7 months and she still wakes up 3 times a night to eat (and she's in the 75th percentile for height and weight), and many, many other things that we've experienced in the past 7 months. But sadly I don't think I will. I think my time with this blog has come to an end, which you probably guessed with my lack of posting. Thanks for being a part of my life for the past few years. Signing off.