The Golden Years ... Of Breastfeeding

Well, all sorts of things have happened since my last post. I'll get right to the Ashley stuff since that is what most of you readers care about anyway!

She is such a little lady now! (If you think farting and burping are lady-like!) Here are the things she is doing now:

• She holds her bottle herself.


• She is eating rice cereal in the morning and at night.


• She has recently discovered her feet.


• She loves it when you sing the Itsy Bitsy Spider.


• Her favorite book is "Little Pea." (Gigi got her into this one! She loves it!)


• She gets extremely frustrated when she can't fit something into her mouth.


• Last night she rolled over 3 times from her back to her stomach.

Enjoy this video of her finding her feet...

She was on such a regular schedule - the model child, really - until I had to go back to work. She must have sensed something was about to change because now she wakes up at 4am and insists on being fed. No amount of paci, swaddling, diaper changing, singing or rocking will make her happy. So, not only do all my clothes hang off me unattractively, I now also have huge dark circles under my eyes to complete the look. I am a quite a vision.

So today, I headed down to the infamous lactation lounge for my "smoke break" and got myself all situated only to realize that I had forgotten the shields that attach to you, allowing the milk to go into the bottle. UGH! That is so annoying!!! So, I had to pack it all up again and go to my car, drive home and pump there.

I think we are entering our "golden years" of breast feeding. I find this pumping business to be really annoying. And by the way, it feels like someone has attached pliers to my nipples and is squeezing and twisting them. (Sorry Dad, I know this is probably too much info.) But it HURTS! So I can choose to either have the pliers or the chomp and turn baby bite. (Or I can choose to say to hell with it and move to formula. Five months is enough, right?! She is already totally advanced and the most amazing child in the universe, so a little formula should even things out anyway!)

Plus, I need a martini.

Ladies & Gentleman, Sir Elton John

Seriously, I feel like she should be singing "Crocodile Rock."

The FIRST Supper

I can't believe it, but it is time for Ashley to start eating solids. I have mixed feelings about this...

On one hand, it is sad to think that time has already flown by and she is ready to eat food other than what I give to her. On the other hand, homegirl is starting to bite me when she eats, so getting past this stage will be a blessing in disguise.

Here is some video of her first meal. She didn't get much in her tummy, but it seemed like she was open to the idea of new options! Enjoy!

If At First You Don't Succeed...

Well, I tried, tried again and made it a whopping 7 hours at the office today. No tears, no tissues, just me and my tea latte talking about ads. Oh, and pumping in the lactation lounge. And wearing breast pads. But other than that, I looked like any other working woman in America.

The lactation lounge isn't as bad as I thought it would be...of course, I had to completely re-arrange the room prior to trying it out, but once I flipped the couch around and moved some partitions, it became a pretty private little place. Some thoughtful HR person had placed some parenting magazines and a telephone in the room. This struck me as odd ... why would there be a telephone in the lactation lounge? Do they think we might call in to a meeting?

"What's that feedback I hear on the line?"

"Oh, sorry, that is just my breast pump. If you talk loudly, you should be able to hear each other over the noise. By the way, it is currently attached to my breast, which I am sure you have a visual of now, Miguel, but I hope that is not distracting for you!"

Or maybe it is for emergency pumping issues, like if it goes into high gear and you can't get it to detach... I don't know.

Anyway, I found out that they have wireless in there too, so maybe I will post one day from the lactation lounge and give you a play by play. Actually, no, that is not a good idea.

By 3pm, I had finished all my meetings, so I thought it was time to head home to see my little girl. She was probably really missing me and distraught that she had not seen me since 7:30 in the morning...



Yeah, she was really missing me from the looks of this picture.

Lazy Sunday

I'm not sure the saying goes, "Like Father, Like Daughter..." But it sure applies in this case! (I am going to take this opportunity to sneak out for a coffee! Early bird gets the worm! ...Or at least some caffeine!)

As Dirty Harry Would Say, "Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya' punk?"

I am feeling pretty lucky! And January must be our lucky month ... because we just won another contest! As many of you know, I love to make things. Cards, invitations, programs, placecards ... everything! So, on a whim, I entered our Christmas card into a contest at Paper Source (which is a FABULOUS paper store in South Coast Plaza) and WE WON!

I dropped the card off back in December and never heard anything from them. I just assumed someone else had won the prize. I happened to be in the store this weekend and inquired about the winner of the contest. I was just curious to see what the winning card looked like. The salesgirl took me up to the counter to show me the winning card and as she handed it to me we both realized ... IT WAS MINE! I just started laughing! She told me that they didn't have my phone number so they couldn't get a hold of me. They were going to send me the gift certificate that I won in the mail, but since I was there today, they would just give it to me. Anyway, it made my day!

On another note, I have one more week to go before I am back at work full-time. Ugh. I plan on trying to go a full day on Tuesday to get used to the idea. But I will be honest, I would much rather be looking at this little face all day:

That. Was. Awful.

There is no other way to put it.

I was going into the office today for an 8am meeting and a trial run of the pumping, etc., so Chris offered to stay with Ashley until Claudia arrived at 7:45. Of course, my perfect angel daughter who has been regularly sleeping through the night, woke up at 4am and was hungry. I just couldn't go back to sleep after that and lay awake worrying about how I wasn't going to be there in the morning to explain to Claudia how to fix Ashley's bottle.

Of course, Ashley then decided to sleep in, so I woke her up at 7:15 trying to keep her on her regular feeding schedule. All she wanted to do was smile and look at me. Chris came in at 7:30 and told me to get going to work and as I handed her over to him, I felt this huge wave of emotion. I just couldn't believe that this special time with my little girl was almost up and that I was going back to work.

I gave her a kiss through my tears and she gave me the biggest, brightest smile. That made me start to sob, so I gathered my things and went out to the garage, crying pretty loud. As I opened the garage door, I heard a pleasant, "Good Morning!" And looked up to see Claudia walking up the driveway. Immediately, her happy face dropped and she said, "What happened?!" Poor thing probably thought someone had died!

Anyway, I cried all the way to work and finally composed myself before walking into the building. I thought I was fine until I walked into my office and saw that my assistant had placed a box of tissues on my desk with pictures of Ashley on each side. It was such a nice gesture...she knows me pretty well.

My 8am meeting went fine and by 11am, it was time to go down to the "Lactation Lounge" to try out the pump. I opened the frosted glass doors in the women's locker room and saw that the "lounge" was basically a room with a couch ... that FACES THE DOOR! What kind of idiot faces the lactation couch towards the door?! I can just hear myself now, "Oh, Hi Michelle! Haven't seen you in four months! I hope you enjoy this bird's eye view of my gi-normous lactating breasts! See you in the Nachos BellGrande meeting at 2!" I mean, come on people! This is hard enough! I just couldn't bring myself to do it, so I turned around and walked out.

I made it 5 hours today. I am going to try again tomorrow.

By the way, Ashley is happy as a little clam. She has a new friend who sings to her and plays with her all day. And I still got a big smile when I got home. And THAT was the best part of my day.