bitten

last night, while we were nursing, aubrey bit me for the first time. yowzah! it hurt! my reaction (gasping and immediately removing my breast from the clenches of her mighty baby jaws) shocked aubrey, who immediately burst into tears. and then i felt bad.

but then she did it again. same reaction from mummy, same response from boopers.

after some comforting (involving a trip downstairs to say goodnight to daddy and cabot one more time) we were able to give it another go, and finally we had nursing (and thereafter sleeping) success. but i have to say that i was a bit hesitant to offer her the bitten breast. ouch!

brought the electric pump home yesterday and set the alarm to wake me up at 1:30 am to pump. it sucks (hah! punny!) but i am hellbent and determined NOT to give aubrey formula.

speaking of which, i stopped at one of my local food cooperatives and bought a 13 oz. can of organic formula (juuuuust in case...) for guess how much?! $21.95!!!!! crikeys! i'll get up TWICE in the night if that's what it will take to keep aubrey exclusively breastfed....

tooth!

busy weekend! a brief update:

pete is back, hooray! he got in around 2:30 am sunday. (his flight from Auckand to L.A. was delayed resulting in him missing his connection to Dulles which meant that he instead flew direct to Boston and then had to rent a car to pick up our car in Manchester, NH...ack!) he is dog tired but glad to be home and we are so very happy to see him!

aubrey has finally cut her first tooth. actually, i think there are two coming in, but i can only feel one. needless to say, she has been a wee *cranky* this weekend with all of the teething and whatnot.

i have heaps to do at work this week, so not much time for relaxing at home with pete. and aubrey has been CHOWING on solids and breastmilk...she is outpacing my current level of production and i am down to my LAST bag of frozen milk. (gulp.) i am starting to freak out a bit. i'm hoping that this frenzy of eating is simply a combination of (1) a growth spurt and (2) teething and that her appetite will die down soon. my current plan of attack is (aside from taking the fennugreek) to start pumping around 1:00 am, to try and get an extra bottle. otherwise, i'm going to be in the market for some organic baby formula, and if i do have to give aubrey formula i'm sure i am going to cry.

ooops!

i had a lot of things to remember for this morning. before leaving the house, i ensured that i accomplished all of my extra tasks. new supply of diapers and wipes to bring to L's? check. refill container with baby rice cereal? done. new bag of dog food emptied into bin? done. and in record time!

i dropped aubrey off and headed to work. when i got to my office, i engaged in my usual morning ritual of turning on my computer and desk lamp, and then putting my bottles and breast pump equipment in their respective places. bottles in bag? check. breast pump equipment? nope.

had to drive home before my first pump session and retrieve my forgotten (essential!) pumping gear. grrrrrr.....

must.make.more.milk.

well, the title pretty much sums things up. i'm back on the fennugreek today.

aubrey was up a few times last night, ravenous. AND she was up at 5:00 am this morning. i held her off until about 5:30, then went up to fetch her and bring her down to bed for an early morning feed. she dozed off after she fed on the second breast, but, as soon as i tried to sneak away she woke up and wanted to play. so it was an early morning for all of us!

of course, did i manage to get out the door early? naw. and, when i got out of the shower (a little before 7:00), the construction crew was in my driveway. nothing like being completely buck naked when a crew of big burly dudes shows up at your house. i *hope* they didn't catch a glimpse of me (through one of our many uncurtained windows) before i got a glimpse of them! (note to self: gotta purchase window treatments, stat!)

i feel like my milk production has gone down a bit over the last few weeks, much to the frustration of my growing little gal. plus, boopers is on the verge of getting a tooth...i can feel a little tooth getting ready to poke through on her lower gum. wouldn't it be great if babies just sprouted all of their teeth at once? that way all of the pain and misery would be over and done with!

so, back to work. oh, before i forget...i got an email from pete this morning. (he's having a great time down on the ice...getting heaps of work done, and having fun too.) he was excited to report his first penguin siting: two emperor penguins hanging out near one of the ice runways! i hope the pictures turn out ok!

weekend!

it's sunday nite, boopers is finally off to sleep (i think i hope) and i am trying to relax a bit before the ratrace begins anew.

on the whole, we had a nice, quiet weekend. saturday morning boopers didn't wake up until 6:30ish, so i got to sleep in a bit. wheee! we treked down the street to the village store to buy a little breakfast, took cabot for a short stroll, and then packed up and took off for montpelier, to visit a good friend of mine from my law school days. she has an almost two-year-old who is cute as a button. we had a lovely afternoon with them.

sunday boopers was up pretty early. she started squaking around 5:30 and was out and out wailing a little after six. she was very hungry - she practically gave me a hickey as i was carrying her downstairs.

even though she got up early, she fought napping all day. my three attempts to put her down for a nap in the morning were pretty much failures. so by lunchtime i had a serious crankpot on my hands. i waited around until 1:00 for pete to call but no dice, so, time to get in the car and go! we headed to the next town north so i could poke around in the local yarn shop (i founds lots of good things) and go to the grocery store. then we visited one of my favorite high school mentors who i haven't seen in ages. so i got lots of good visiting done this weekend.

tomorrow i am going to attempt to bring aubrey to work with me for the morning. daycare is closed, owing to the fact that it is MLK Jr. day, and L has to bring all three of her kids to the dentist. so...my plan is to bring lots of toys and the boppy with me and have aubrey camp out behind my desk. hopefully she'll be content and maybe - just maybe - i'll be able to bill a few hours. Am i being optimistic? we'll see what tomorrow brings....

and here's another picture of boopers for pete...tubby in the sink at grammies!

sippy cups

just yesterday i received our long-awaited order of BPA-free sippy cups from Born Free (we ordered them almost a month ago...). i have tried to give aubrey water out of her bottles and she takes one sip and gives me this look like i've sprouted a second head. so i figured that maybe trying to introduce water in a sippy cup would be a good strategy.

well, boopers isn't warming up to the sippy cup. or drinking water, other than a spoonful here and there. maybe i just need to give it to her at a time of day when she's not completely overtired and cranky. i wonder why she's so nonplussed about water....

may i never be a single mom

dang, it sure is tough not having pete around! the past few days have been completely hairbrained.

yesterday morning aubrey was up before six. ack! and cabot had puked on the floor during the night. double ack! and then aubrey had a runny poop explosion. sweet. and to boot i felt terrible...achy, sour stomach, the runs, just plain ole yuck. but, i pulled it together and managed to get aubrey off to her alternate daycare arrangements (i.e., my very dear friend L who lives five minutes up the road) and arrive at work at a respectable time.

by the time i left work to pick aubrey up, i really felt awful, like i had been run over by a steamroller. i picked up aubrey and came home. after getting through the evening dog/baby feeding, baby bathing and putting to bed, i packed up aubrey's things for the next day and took my temp. 100 degrees. i ate a few crackers, finished up a load of laundry (aubrey went through three outfits today due to runny poop explosions), and put my sorry self to bed early.

thankfully, today i feel much better. which was good, because i had a deposition to attend. i dropped aubrey off and made it half way to the depo when i realized that i had left the bottles i was supposed to pump in on the kitchen table. noooooooo! luckily, my partner had some ziplock bags that i used in lieu of bottles. not a pretty situation, but better than nothing. at least i remembered the PUMP. it would have been a bad, bad situation without it.

unfortunately, all three of L's kids have come down with the same stomach bug that we've had. i feel terrible! sigh. i keep telling myself that this builds character and stamina. but i am so so so glad that i am NOT a single mom. i don't know how they do it.

on a brighter note, boopers is sitting up really well now! check her out: