Dream Feeding

For the last (nearly) four months our amazing baby has been sleeping pretty much through the night. However, I have been cheating. I've been waking her up just before I go to bed to nurse her one last time so she'll sleep through. It worked really well, and I loved nursing the snuggly, sleepy baby. Honestly it was my favorite nursing session of the day.

I've known for several weeks now that Eden didn't really need that "dream feed." She was not nursing long, just a few minutes, and she was never waking up for it on her own if I was up too late. It was more for me than her. Honestly, it was about having a few extra minutes to snuggle, especially after being away from her all day. So I decided that, while I had four days off, we'd try stopping it. Wednesday night I fell asleep on the living room floor and Bryan woke me up at midnight. I didn't even think about the dream feed, and we woke up at 7:30 when she starting "calling" for us. She did it, the first night. And we haven't looked back. Except that I still miss it.

So now she's nursing just four times a day, and twice a day she's eating solids on top of that. She takes about 6.5-7 ounces at a feeding, plus her cereal or veggies. I always said that I'd nurse until at least six months, and then we'd see after that. But honestly, as much as it's a little bit annoying to have to pump at work, I love nursing. I was reading about weaning yesterday and started to tear up a bit. We're just two weeks away from my "wait-and-see" deadline, and I think we're going to keep going. I love it, she loves it, and it's only a little bit of a hassle at work. And I am most certainly not ready to give it up. It's been such a huge part of our life together, I can't imagine stopping.

This may be TMI, but whatever. It's my blog. :)

Layout note

FYI, I just added links to Eden's web albums on the right. They're organized by month, except for the first week (because there were something like 100 pictures that first week. Seriously.).

Enjoy!

Thanksgiving 2008

Happy (late) Thanksgiving!!

Our little family had a week-long celebration of Thankfulness, capped off by my first-ever attempt at Thanksgiving fare. I think I did pretty well, actually. But to that later.

First, Kel's parents were in town last weekend. Since it's sort of become our custom to spend Thanksgiving with them, we were excited when they invited us to spend Saturday at a "Fakesgiving" celebration. :) Mrs. W cooked up an amazing Thanksgiving feast, with Turkey breast and ham courtesy of Honey Baked Ham. Lovely! And she taught me a few tricks for cooking the "fixin's" so when I made my feast a few days later I wouldn't be totally lost. The food was super yummy.

Eden tried green beans for the first time Saturday, too. It was so funny to watch her face. She was a little unsure at first, but by the end she liked it:


After the food was eaten, there was much Wii playing and football watching. And cuddling. And Eden gave Mrs. W lots of kisses to say thanks for an amazing dinner (even though her green beans were made by Gerber...):

(Yes, we had to change her clothes, because as it turns out green bean spit-up is NAS-TAY).

ANYHOO...

Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, I decided to cook my first-ever Thanksgiving meal. Bryan bought a 17 lb turkey (we weren't sure how many guests we'd have - anywhere from 4 to 7) and all the other groceries I sent him after. Just for my own information (for next year!), here's what I made:

One 17 lb turkey. I cooked it for 20 minutes at 450 degrees, and then turned down the oven to 250 for several hours. It was not done at the 20-minutes-per-pound time. Next year I will probably turn up the heat to 300 or 325. Here's Bryan carving it (I didn't get a picture before... D'OH!):
I also made dressing (cornbread; 4 slices white bread; onion; celery; and 4 cans of chicken broth - which was a bit too much), my favorite "smashed" potatoes; and (Bryan's favorite) green bean casserole. Just for fun I threw together a cherry pie, and Kel made THE CAKE.

It was a great day. Eden was a doll. Nino was pretty ok, except for when he knocked an egg off the countertop and started EATING IT!! (grrr). John and Bella came over, and then Kel came over after work. We played a little Wii, watched a little football, and passed out at 10:00 or something. But it was awesome. So relaxing.

That was our Thanksgiving. It was a great time with our little family, and I felt like a grownup, making my first turkey. There have been a few moments in my life when I've thought, "Wow... for the rest of my life I'll have had that experience." For the rest of my life, I'll be married. For the rest of my life I'm someone's mom. And now, for the rest of my life, I've made a turkey. Wahoo!

Quick update

Sorry I've been absent from the blogosphere lately. I'm still reading, just commenting and certainly posting less often. Here are a few things by way of update:

• I still love my job. I had a lunch meeting at the local bar association today and it felt really awesome to be taken seriously and to be really doing something worthwhile.
• It's still crazy trying to balance everything, but so far it's been OK. The hardest part is that if I take a lunch, and don't bill while I'm pumping, then 2 hours of my day are gone. That makes it hard, because I can feel like I'm running myself crazy and I have actually very little to show for it.
• Two days ago when I came home from work, Bryan was sitting on the couch with Eden on his lap. She turned and saw me, and her whole face lit up. She gave me a huge, gummy smile, and lunged for me. Oh my goodness, that moment is forever blazed on my memory - it melted my heart. She is sooo adorable.
• Eden is going to take off crawling any minute. She's really getting her hands-and-knees thing down.
• Bryan and I had an amazing birthday dinner Tuesday night (thanks J&K for babysitting!). We dressed up, drove into the city, gave the car to the valet, and had awesome steak. And since it was both of our birthdays, the waiter gave us two free desserts! With lit candles!! YAY! It was highly indulgent, but it was a birthday celebration and this was our gift to each other.
• John's family (Dad, Mom, and brother and sister-in-law) were in town last weekend, and it was great to be able to spend some time with them. There are so few people who know us relatively well (even though we have only met them a few times we feel that they fall into that category) who have yet to meet Eden, and so it was nice to introduce her to them. They fell in love with her, and she and John's dad took to each other immediately. I think he held he basically all weekend. Except when we went candlepin bowling. Which was crazy fun. :)
• More later... I promise. I just can't promise when "later" will be!

5 Months

Dear Eden,

Beautiful baby girl, you're growing up so fast. You shared your 5-month birthday with your Daddy's 26th-year birthday on Saturday. He loves sharing days with you - first Father's Day and now this!

You're getting so strong. You've started sitting up much better now! You can sit for several seconds before falling over, and you look like such a big kid doing it! You're making amazing progress on your tummy too. You push your whole chest off the ground, and you've started getting you little tush up in the air. Saturday you decided to get up on your hands and knees for a good 5 seconds. One day very soon you'll be scooting across the floor! We ordered a living room rug today so that'll be easier.

We started you on solids this month, and you're loving your morning oatmeal and your evening rice. If we mix it with water instead of milk you make funny faces, and if it's too thick you have a hard time swallowing. But usually we get it right and you do pretty great. Next we're going to try vegetables, and we can't wait!

You are so adorable. Your cheeks are such kissable little marshmallows, and your thighs are tootsie rolls of sweetness. I love to make snorting noises and kiss them, and you think it's hilarious. Your giggle is infectious. When you were a month old and just starting to smile I ran into a friend of mine with an older daughter. He said smiling is great, but just wait till she laughs. He was right. It's a million times better to get a giggle out of that happy little face.

You still look like Daddy, but I think sometimes you look a little bit like me now too. Mostly you're just Eden, a perfect mixture of the best of both of us. Your eyes are starting to turn brown. I know they're going to be beautiful and perfect, but part of me is sad that you didn't keep my blue eyes. Oh, well - I know you're mine. I have the stretch marks to prove it!

I've been working almost a whole month, and I miss you like crazy when I'm gone all day. But you and Daddy are having so much fun together during the day, and you and Angela love your Tuesdays. And when I get home in the evening you are so happy to see me, it makes my day walking in that door. And weekends it's Mommy time. I get to hold you as much as I want, and cuddle you like crazy. This weekend we took naps together both days! I love those times. I could snuggle next to you for hours.

You are such an amazing child, and I can't wait to see what is next for you. I love you so much I can't even express it, and it doesn't seem possible but I do love you more every single day. Like I sing you every night, you are my Sunshine, baby girl. Stay just how you are.

Love,
Mommy

Hot Doc

Want to know what Bryan was for Halloween?

Check it out. (technically, it was the day after Halloween. But whatever.)

Working on a post about the election. It may be a couple of days before I get it out though. Just don't think I forgot about it. :)

Go out and vote!!

If for no other reason than you can get some free Starbucks and ice cream!!

I'll be voting this evening after work. Bryan, of course, will not be voting. For those of you who don't know my darling husband, he has a few strange quirks, one of which is that he refuses to participate in the democratic process beyond complaining. His primary reason is that he has a fundamental philosophical disagreement with the two-party system in this country, and he's never seen a politician he agreed with 100%. However, even when it gets close, as it did with Ron Paul (yes my husband loved that crazy, crazy man), he still refuses to vote because "his vote won't count" in this state (which drives me insane). Every attempt on my part (and Meg's, mind you) has been met with stark disappointment. If you have any magic ideas over the next few hours let me know, but I'm not optimistic.

Guess what??

I PASSED!! And I cried when I got that letter.

Praise the Lord!

Solids!!

I know I'm a little slow getting around to blogging this but life is crazy. Who knew working would take up so much time!! Anyway, Last weekend Eden started solids!! Her doctor said we could start anytime between 4 and 6 months, as long as certain milestones were met. I forget what they all were because as the doctor listed them we ticked them off in our heads. So we waited a week and a half, and then tried some rice cereal! The doc said to try mostly breastmilk mixed with a little cereal, so we did that the first time (as you can tell from the video). It was really runny, and really hard to feed her without getting it everywhere. So we immediately started using less milk, making the mixture thicker. WAY better. Now we're all pros at this solid food thing. Next stop: vegetables!!

Also, thought you might like to see the aftermath:

Shucks, that's cute corn - Halloween 2008

(Title courtesy of His Cheesiness, my husband.)

Eden was an ear of corn for Halloween this year. By that I mean she put on the costume for about half an hour at home and we took pictures and admired her cuteness.





We enjoyed the evening by heading over to J&K's and doing some karaoke. For Kel's birthday we got her Singstar Country, so we went over with some other great friends to play. First baby Zek and Eden had to greet each other (AHEM Zek was totally flirting. Eden tried to eat him.):


Then the babies went off to bed at it was karaoke time!! The rule quickly emerged that, when singing Singstar Country you must at all times wear a cowboy hat. J&K went first (they're nauseatingly adorable, of course):


Then the Mabi (plural for Mabus of course) sang some Johnny Cash:



And then it was our turn. Apparently Bryan thought we were singing Aerosmith?


It was a fun time. As usual. Another one of those days that made me so thankful for the community we have here.

This morning I slept a bit later than usual (now) and went to my pilates class. I'm super loving it, but it's hard. It's only once a week, which is good because I think by the next Saturday I forget how much I suck at it and get excited to go again! The good news is, I've started to be able to do sit-ups. Which is not something I take for granted anymore after having my abs stretched so freakin' wide. I think I'm starting to get into some semblance of my old shape, though my tummy looks like a deflated baloon that a tiger attacked. Yeah, not pretty. But whatever - my bikini days are over, fine. I have a beautiful baby girl.

OK that was a random tangent. Stream of consciousness. Sorry - I'm still a little sleep-deprived. It's amazing what not being home all day to be able to nap will do to a body.