I'm back, baby(s).

Alright.
So I want to come back to this even though I'm not sure how often I'll be able to.  When last I left you, I was on track with weight loss and had gotten accepted in graduate school.  Lala was getting to the point where she was becoming her own person, who could play for a little bit while I did something that didn't completely revolve around her. I was writing and reading.  I was in a really good place.

Source

And then something happened that really derailed me, in a lot of ways.
I got pregnant again.  The last post that I wrote, I was already pregnant but I didn't know yet.  I was really sick for almost two weeks, but besides simply feeling like crap, I didn't have any other symptoms.  I stopped losing weight.  I started to get really worried.  I hadn't yet gotten a period since Lala had been born and I was on birth control, so pregnancy didn't jump immediately to mind.  But, deep down, I had a feeling.
I took a pregnancy test and it was positive.
I can't fully describe how I felt.  I was devastated and terrified.  I walked out of the bathroom and looked at my husband.  I remember that my hands were shaking and cold.  I didn't have to say it out loud.  I burst into tears.  He held my shoulders but I didn't want to be embraced.  "What are we going to do?"
We had already started preparations to move.  I had been accepted to school and we were set to go.  I was finally experiencing more physical freedom than I had known from Lala but she was still breastfeeding.  I didn't think I could do the exhaustion and the physical symptoms of pregnancy and birth all over again, especially with a baby as young as Lala that I needed to take care of.
It was hard but my husband and I talked a lot and we decided that we were going to go ahead with the move and with school.  I really felt that I needed to go ahead.  I feel like I stalled on my career long enough, and I was really itching for intellectual challenge.
So we packed up and moved back to our alma mater into an expensive not-great apartment in an excellent location in the village and I went back to school.  With a lot of finangling, sooooo much help from our family and friends, a lot of understanding from my professors and a heady mix of determination, organization and insanity, I made it through my first two semesters, giving birth to Lala's sister Mimi a little more than halfway through my second semester.

Lala & Mimi

Now I'm getting ready for my last semester, taking a few summer courses and trying to get back into my groove.  I'm working out and trying to eat better; I'm almost back down to the weight I was when I got pregnant with Mimi (which was about fifteen down from the weight I seem to hover around when I don't pay attention).  I'm trying to get back into writing and read more (for me!).

Thus, this post.  I'm working on my own projects again, though I'm going to try to ease into a little.  Here we go!

Nail cutting

The worst baby chore, even worse than changing poopy diapers, is nail cutting.  It is a nerve wracking experience that I can only compare disarming bombs in the movies.
You need to take a wriggling human being and cut the barest sliver of the thinnest substance right from the end of the wiggliest part of said human.  If you're not super careful, if there's one little slip, the baby is screaming and bleeding, and, worse, it's all your fault.  It is the worst psychic torment to heap upon a parent.  But if you don't cut the baby's nails they scratch themselves and everyone else around all to hell.
Some advice says to cut the baby's nails while they sleep, but Lala's not that deep of a sleeper.  It would make it much easier.  There are also baby nail files on the market.  I've never been that great at filing my own nails, but I bet it would be more painless.  The only downside is that you have to file every day.  I have to cut Lala's nails about once a week.
Oh, well.  It's done today.  No Mommy torture for a few more days, at least.

Breastfeeding

Man, I did not realize what a snakes' nest it is feeding your baby.  Everyone has an opinion, and some people get super vocal/scary about it.  Breastfeeding is the only way!  Breastfeeding is an abomination   You feed formula!?  You ingest caffeine!?
It's exhausting, dudes.
So, mostly I try to avoid the mommy drama.  Especially on the internet!  I say, if you're doing what you can to make your baby the healthiest he or she can be, that's all anyone can ask.  No judgement here.
I decided, a long time ago, that I wanted to breastfeed.  I knew it was going to be tough, but I insisted to myself that it was the way.  I wouldn't take no for an answer.  After my experience having Lala, however, I was worried that I had been too steadfast about this particular thing.  That there was no way I could have what I wanted in this arena.  But I was wrong.  My steadfast insistence proved one of my greatest allies in my attempts to breastfeed.
That is the biggest piece of advice I can give: you have to WANT it.  There were times that it was harder than anything I'd ever done before.  Times when I was exhausted beyond belief, or just wanted a minute completely to myself, or suffering discomfort from too much nursing or not enough nursing.
Really, though, breastfeeding came easily to me.  That sounds like a brag but it's more like a wonder.  I did a fair amount of research online and in books but not as much as I thought I would.  Not nearly as much I researched anything else, and not near enough to realize that some days I would be spending close to five hours physically connected to another person.  I attribute my success mostly to Lala.  She's a good breastfeeder   Her latch is great, her focus is pretty reliable and she doesn't get too hungry before she asks (my words, haha).

Breastfeeding while laying on my side works the best for Lala and I.  It took me way too long to figure that one out.

This post comes towards what may be the end of my breastfeeding sojourn.  My initial goal was six months.  But here we are at eight, still doing alright.  I'm trying to make it to a year.  Lala wants more and more "people food" as she gets bigger and with her four teeth (top and bottom incisors), biting has become incredibly painful.  I'm trying to hold out.  I enjoy our time together so much.  It's so intimate and dreamy.  And, if I'm completely honest, the extra three hundred or so calories a day I get to eat is pretty nice.
So, here are my suggestions for successful breastfeeding, in list format, because that's how I roll.

• Get a support group.  If you have a partner, they can be a great asset.  When I was head-lolling tired, my mom and Bard supported me, helped me the best that they could.  With their support, I felt like I could continue even when all else felt lost.  I also had the number of a great lactation consultant.  You can usually get this through your hospital.  We didn't even have to ask.  There are also tons of great online resources.  But I was careful where I tread.  La Leche League International is a great resource but they stray into the political too much for my purposes (I'm a little conflict phobic, I think).
• Research.  A little.  Don't go crazy, but it's nice to have the general idea of what has worked for others in the past.  It gives you a little arsenal of things to try in the event (and it happened to me) that what your baby has been happily doing for months suddenly doesn't work.
• Trust your instincts.  Every baby and every mom are different.  What may work for someone else, or some other baby, may not work for you and that's cool.
• Balance research with your instincts and don't be afraid to play detective.  When Lala was still very new, she was having serious issues with gas.  You could hear her belly, and (gross alert!) her poops were explosive and green.  She was unhappy a lot of the time.  I had a doctor tell me that it was pretty normal, but I wasn't happy with that answer.  So I did some research and discovered that it might be a number of things with my breastfeeding technique.  So I made a number of changes and it really helped.  My favorite resource in this endeavor was http://www.breastfeeding-problems.com/.  A collection of really sound and simple advice.
• Invest in some good nursing foundations.  Especially if you go back to work.  Pumping in a regular bra  sucks!  Also, my favorite article of clothing right this moment is a mid-length nursing gown my mom bought me when I was in the hospital.  It's cool enough for summer, short enough to wear pants for winter, not terribly ugly and crazy convenient.
• Drink lots of water and try not to stress out too much.  Of all the things that supposedly impede milk production, these are the two that I have noticed pretty much kill it for me.
• Room in, at least at first.  Lala, I have told you, is a terrible sleeper.  I can only imagine trying to drag myself down the hall two or three (sometimes four!) times a night to feed her.  That she was at the foot of our bed in her cradle and then her crib was a godsend on those early late nights where she needed to be fed-NOW.
• If all else fails, formula won't kill them.  There are people who would argue this point with me.  Lala's had probably three formula feedings and it didn't inhibit her taste for breastmilk.  My production didn't flag any more than normal day-to-day fluctuations.  If you want to breastfeed almost exclusively, all you need to do is make sure it doesn't become a habit.

It is my hope that my meandering experience may do someone good.  And if it doesn't, that's okay too.  Maybe if/when I have another baby in four or five years, I'll be able to help myself.

Dragging

Lala has decided that she doesn't want to sleep for the second day in a row.  I'm really starting to feel the effects of not getting any sleep.
Not that she was a great sleeper in the first place.  Most sleep advice out there is aimed at parents of newborns or involves the cry it out method.  I just can't do that right now.  Part of it is that it hurts me too bad.  I can't stand to listen to her cry and not do anything about it.  I have trouble thinking of soothing my baby as indulgent.  I have trouble with the thought that even though she's shaking and blotchy and red from crying that she didn't need me in the first place.  But an even bigger obstacle to cry it out is that she lives in our room.  Her crib is at the foot of our bed.  How cruel would it be to be within her sight and not respond to her?  How much sleep would we get if she was crying away in the same room?  No thanks.
She hasn't been a terrible sleeper in the past couple of months.  She got into a good pattern where she only woke up a handful of time throughout the night to nurse (and usually I'm the only one that she woke and not for long) and would sleep, consistently, until about nine-thirty or ten.
But about a week ago that all fell apart.
A lot of parenting advice warned me that this shift in sleep was coming-but it wasn't supposed to be for another month or so.  She does things on her own schedule.  She's cutting teeth, which is uncomfortable and makes her feel icky, causing her to wake screaming bloody murder in the wee hours of the morning.  But otherwise, it just seems that there's been a shift in her sleep.  She stays up later (which is ridiculous because in my opinion she already stayed up way too late.  A part of me is grateful since I'm stuck working nights at Big Box; it's nice to be able to see her and snuggle her.) and she gets up earlier.  But she's not in any sort of pattern yet.
I sort of wish I could stick to a schedule with her.  She needs her rest and I definitely need  my rest.  But with Big Box randomness it is currently sort of impossible.
It's probably not helping that I've been feeling an adrenaline rush since I started this graduate school process.  The crazies have set in, filling up my notebook with list after list of things I need to do, plan, get, etc.
What I wouldn't give for a decent night of sleep.

Long time, no see....

Time!  I haven't gotten to write in a while, and that sucks!  I am sorry, me, for not taking this time.  I am sorry, you, for promising things and then disappearing.  Not cool.

Lala sleeps like her mother sometimes...

Between working, looking for better work, taking care of Lala and taking care of my marriage and my health I have had very little time to myself that I have not used either napping or just vegging.  But I'm trying to be more active in all ways, so back to this!
Actually, I missed writing in my blog immensely.  It is a place where I can work out the threads going through my head. Part of the issue is that I started a blog post that was really too emotional to write at the time and I got blocked.  I still want to write that post, about the process of having my daughter, but for now it can rest. I'm still processing the thoughts and emotions and events, even though it's seven months later.  It's a complex post.  I'll let it stew a while longer.
Updates!  The breastfeeding is going very well.  I'll devote a whole post to it, but Lala is now just over seven months old and we've only supplemented with formula probably twice.  Lala started on homemade purees (also a likely post) and baby cereal.  She loves peas, hooray! We're actually looking at using formula now to mix into Lala's cereal since her schedule is a little wonky thanks to my wonky Big Box schedule.  The pumping is going well on and off.
My emotions have been raging over the past several months.  Lala is not exactly an easy baby.  I love her with every atom of my being and I wouldn't trade anything for her.  But she's particular and very sensitive.  Bard and I have had to seriously work on our relationship.  We're in a better place where we try to communicate more but there are still challenges.  We both feel a little stuck and that can be a real strain on us.  Things are unstable in our home life otherwise, as well, though going into that opens up and entirely different can of worms.  I've been trying to be more mentally and socially healthy but it has been a struggle.
The weight struggle continues.  I hate to be uncomfortable, but I have a renewed fervor in the last weeks.  Bard has started looking at joining the military.  I feel like it would be a good move for our financial stability and that work in that vein will give him the satisfaction he wants out of a career.  To do that, though, he needs to get into better shape and lose a significant amount of weight.  So I'm trying to be part coach, part cheerleader, part drill sergeant.  Bard is hard to push.  He shuts down after too much.  So I'm trying a lighter touch and to be enthusiastic and active myself.  Today I had a minor victory at the market.  I bought only healthy snacks!  I'm sure we'll be able to do it if we push/support one another.
Yesterday, I had a conversation with someone at work who had written a book.  A few friends of mine have written books and gotten them published.  Selling on Amazon!  What the hell am I waiting for?  I can't tell you; I don't know.  I don't feel as though I'm that good.  I am definitely not that disciplined.  But with all this other disciplining I'm trying to do, maybe I should reconsider.
I feel uninspired.  I was telling Bard that I feel as though my brain has atrophied.  I don't feel as clever or as intelligent or as creative as I used to.  I want to get back there.  Maybe if I try writing again it will help.  I got a burst of energy on our RPG Maker project the other day and my brain felt pretty good for a while.  Maybe it, just like my body, just needs a more strenuous workout than Big Box can provide.
I just got an idea for a d20 Modern or maybe d20 Future game I could play with my husband.  End navel-gazing stream of consciousness!  Begin possible game notes!

Back to Work

It's official.  I'm back to work on Monday.  I am actively trying not to dread it but not doing a very good job of it.  I don't want to have to leave Lala everyday for hours.  The past weeks have zoomed by.
I am jealous of women who can afford to stay home with their kids.  I greatly enjoy it.  As the start of my workday looms, I am more and more reluctant.  I sulked much of today, and cried to my mother.  How can I feel like those moms that are excited to get back to work?  They talk about wanting to have the time to themselves, about being happier when fulfilled by their work, and appreciating the family time that they get more for the time spent away.  Intellectually, I understand this.  But my heart aches when I think about being away from Lala.  On the other hand, I think if I liked my work more I might be less reluctant.
I'm afraid of the effect working will have on my breastfeeding.  My goal is to breastfeed for a year, though I will be satisfied with myself if i make it to six months.  We have had a successful two months so far.  I'm not sure what to expect or even what to do as I try to negotiate work and breastfeeding.  Most of the internet advice I read is for women with predictably scheduled desk jobs.  Close the door to your office, they suggest.  I suppose that speaks to the type of working woman who is breastfeeding.  If I figure it out, I'll let you know.
The other issue I think I'm having is that I finally feel like I've gotten into a good groove.  I'm sleeping more regular hours, and I'm actually getting things done during the day.  Initially, I was amazed if aside from caring for Lala I managed to get myself bathed and fed.  Things have started to get more predictable and a little easier.  Getting myself onto some semblance of a schedule was making me feel stable.  Going back to work means adjusting to a whole new schedule.  And, unfortunately, due to the nature of my employment, it will likely be a sporadic one.
I have to tell myself that going to work is what is best for my family right now.  Lala will be better off if I'm bringing in an income and we have the benefits that my job gives me.  I have to believe it.

Playing all day