What's On My Mind

Ronnie continues to be a champ at nursing. The only position we don't seem to have mastered is laying down in bed; it's good enough that I can catch an hour of sleep before returning her to her bassinet if I'm desperate. She does, however, go through these periods of feeding frenzy every few days where she's chomping at my nipples and demanding boob like every 30 minutes. Usually in the evenings. When I get to the point where I can't take her squirming anymore then I pass her on to her dad. Mr. b has been working on bottle training her. It's slow going but he reminded me that it was hard work with Kirk, too. And she's obviously got to learn.

I'm still not getting much via pumping but I guess I don't care. We can have Ronnie on formula at daycare and I'll continue to pump when I go back to work and that's what we'll have for everything in between.

Kirk continues to be absolutely smitten with his sister. He takes his big brother duties very seriously. If I ask him to watch her for a minute, he'll literally watch her. He loves announcing that she "wants boobie" when she starts to fuss. He's very patient and understanding about the fact that she doesn't do anything yet. He talks about how she's growing and will learn things. It's darling and sweet.

I think we've finally discovered his reversion though. Kirk wants to sleep in our bed a lot again. It's been quite some time since he's done that. If Mr. b happens to be crashed on the couch or downstairs I don't mind because there's enough room, even if Ronnie is next to me instead of in her bundle bin. But all four of us gets crowded! Last night Kirk just brought himself to our bed; I have a vague memory of him showing up and Mr. b just woke up and he was there. The problem was that Kirk apparently thought that if I was awake at 4 am nursing his sister then he could be up and jumping around and telling stories. His father got him put back into his own bed after that.

I took the bundle in for the obligatory visit at work yesterday. I can't believe my leave is already half over.

I'm so ready to start the allowed-to-have-sex-again countdown.

I think I've already lost the miniscule amount of baby weight I gained this time. My pants all fit already. And I haven't even started exercising yet. I plan to start that next week. I can feel the laziness in my muscles. Or at least, I can feel it during those rare moments when I'm well rested. I'm eating like a maniac, however, so I think milk production must be helping. The lactation nurse at the hospital said you need an extra 300 calories a day when you're pregnant but an extra 500 when you're nursing. Damn. I can tell.

I need to investigate the rules for drinking. I've heard that beer can help with milk let down and I'm presuming that means one drink in general and not beer specifically. I figure one drink won't affect the milk. Mr. b has bought me a couple of those flavored Smirnoff thingies and I haven't been able to finish one the two times I've had one. (Of course he bought me tall boys both times and then got to finish them himself so there may have been an ulterior motive there.) I know the phrase "pump and dump" but I don't know the details. At what point does the alcohol hit the milk ducts? Is the milk that's in there when you start drinking fine? What if you can't drain it all or how can you tell it's safe again?

There's a subtle difference to how I view us as a unit now that we have two kids. Before we were a couple that had a son. Now we're a family.