A Sad Day for Mommy

Well actually, a sad night. I gave my little man his first real bottle of formula last night. Thaddeus has been a challenge from the start, and our most recent problems have been frequent nighttime waking and trouble getting him to nurse. 

When the problems started a couple of weeks ago, I called his doctor's office, and they recommended spreading out his feedings; that maybe he wasn't ever getting to the point where he was hungry enough to nurse. That did nothing. I called the Lactation Consultant next, she said NO! Do the opposite, keep nursing just as often as you were because you don't want to decrease your milk supply. Still no help. So he's not eating well, and he is waking up 4 or 5 times every night. Very frustrating especially since the one thing I held on to through all of our other problems was "well, at least he sleeps well at night". No more.

One of the hands-down toughest things for a new mom is knowing what to do. Everything is new. Self confidence is down the toilet. It's hard sometimes to judge whether or not something that you are trying is working, which makes you second-guess everything. It's just hard. So, when all else fails, what do you do? You call your mom.

And my mom, in all her child rearing wisdom comes up with a great idea: He's not getting enough to eat. Give him a bottle of formula and see what happens. So, last night, instead of our before-bed nursing, I have him a bottle of formula. Dude sucked that stuff down like no one's business. And, magically, he slept better. He woke up twice, once at 1:00, once at 4:00. To a normally sleeping adult, that may sound terrible, but to a mother of an infant such as myself, it was wonderful. (Justin, bless his heart, woke up when I got back in bed after the 4:00 feeding, and was like "he woke up already huh". Uh, Justin, it's 4:00 in the morning, and this is the second time we've been up. Thanks for nothing). 

We'll try another bottle tonight, and this time I will give him even more since he seemed like he could have drank all 5 (five?) of the Great Lakes, and we'll see what happens. In the meantime, even if you are up 10 times at night, how can you be mad at this mug?

Weekend Project

Since Thaddeus has a max of one hour of happy time between naps/feedings, my ability to take him anywhere is somewhat limited (unless of course I decide to enjoy people staring at me while my child screams, which at this time, I do not). One of the places we CAN go is Goodwill which is conveniently located about a mile from our house, and has plenty of junk to peruse through.

On one of our weekdays home together the week before last, I braved an outing with him and found this gem for $2.99. Yes, that's right, under 3 dollars.

My thought was to paint it and use it as a bookshelf in The Man's room rather than the cheap-O pressboard Walmart cubicles that I had been using (Wait, am I saying that Goodwill is a step UP from Walmart? Interesting).

With some instruction from Mr. Knows-How-To-Do-Everything, I sanded and painted (about 42 coats) and created this masterpiece!!

Nice! You're welcome, Thaddeus, add this to you list of reasons to give Mommy lots of hugs!

Overnight Escapade

My mother in law's family has a family reunion every 5 years, and this year the reunion took place practically in our backyard - near Silver Falls State Park in Oregon. I was nervous about going, not being totally sure what the accommodations were, and being well acquainted with Mr. T and his general bed attitude. Unfortunately, my fears came to pass when 5 million new faces, and an unknown setting proved to be more than he would handle. Dude would not sleep even though he was exhausted. He didn't nap. He constantly woke up and was fussy. All. Night. Long. In the dark hours of early morning, at the peak of our frustration, I tried changing a barely wet diaper hoping it would be the magic cure. I put him on our bed to change him, and of course he does what he NEVER DOES, takes a pee while nudey-patootey. Wet bed. Wet PJ's. Crying baby. Nearly crying parents. I got him clean, dry, swaddled, and, still crying, got him back into his pack and play. He lay there crying while Justin and I stood there contemplating packing up and going home. We turn and look down at him and the little bugger has flipped himself over and is looking up at us with that goofy "what's up guys" grin on his face. What can you do.