Emma

I'm happy to announce the newest member of our family, Emma! She is a basset hound/cattle dog mix and we rescued her from the pound last week. I told Dan about two weeks ago that we could go "look" at the dogs in Animal Control's kennel one day after I got off work. Last Wednesday worked out the best between Dan's hours and when AC would still be open in the evening. We had looked at their website to see the dogs who were available for adoption and had one or two picked out that we would want to "meet" when we got there. Joey came with us, of course, and would be the determining factor in any dog that may or may not come home with us. Any dog we looked at, Joey had to like and it had to like Joey, plain and simple. We walked around and checked out all the dogs, some are waiting for their owners to pick them up, others were brought in as strays, some were even given up by their owners. The first dog we wanted to look at was definitely a stray and had been for some time, he was skinny and very timid. We "met" him in one of their little side rooms but Joey was afraid of him (despite the dog not doing anything remotely close to aggressive) and I was uneasy about a stray anyway. While we had been walking around, we came across Emma who was friendly and not at all barking. With little ones who take naps, no barking is very important to me. We asked about her and found out that she had been a stray but was still in her "waiting to see if the owner claims her" period. If nobody claimed her, she would be available to take home Saturday and we could put in the paperwork if we wanted so that someone else couldn't adopt her while we waited.

Checking out the hamsters.

We met with her in the room and Joey instantly loved her. He kept wanting to get on the floor and play (um, ew) and she kept licking his hands and face and didn't mind when he was not quite gentle with her tail. We were sold, this was our dog. We filled out the paperwork, paid the fees, and were told that she would have to come back Tuesday to be spayed. No problem, I do not want puppies! We liked that because it also gave us the weekend as a trial period to see how she and Joey did living in close quarters and for us to get an idea of her personality. In the couple of days before picking her up, we stopped at PetSmart to get what we would need when we brought her home, Joey likes PetSmart :)

Bringing her home on Saturday was interesting. There was just as much novelty in being in a new house with new people for her as there was for Joey having a dog in his house. To this point, he's only gone to people's houses to see dogs, there's never been one in HIS house, so this was exciting, especially because he liked this dog a lot. It was rough for me because Dan had plans with a friend that afternoon and left me for several hours with these two crazy toddlers (Emma's age is estimated to be around a year old) and keep them from hurting each other. Emma liked to play bite, a lot, and didn't discriminate against small humans either. She was a little more gentle with Joey, but not much, and she saw him as something to herd, not as a member of the pack. Dan and I had a long talk Saturday night about whether we could keep her or not. I'm not opposed to training at all, I just didn't want to lose a lot of money and bond with a dog just to give her up when I'm too pregnant and tired to deal with keeping her and Joey off each other.

Sunday Dan started working with Emma to see how she would respond to training. She still hasn't quite mastered "sit", but has responded to the spray bottle, she hates it! Play biting has significantly diminished from that first day and since she showed signs of not inheriting basset hound stubbornness, we decided to keep her! After her surgery to be spayed on Tuesday, she's also mellowed out a bit, although part of that could also be due to getting used to living with us and being in a routine. Either way, I will take a slightly more mellow dog. She's still got crazy energy and loves to take walks, but she's not running around the house like she was before. Emma is absolutely the perfect size, energy level, and personality for our family. We found out that when she was found she was wearing a collar, so at some point she lived with a person or people. It was clear from the play biting and general lack of some "doggie manners" that they didn't attempt much training with her besides housebreaking her. Even the timid stray we didn't like knew the "sit" command.

I think some of her initial wild behavior had to do with her previous "pack" not establishing who was alpha. Dogs who are not alpha personalities do much better when you establish your dominance, because then they don't have to worry about trying to be something they're not. I have a feeling that's also part of why Emma has mellowed out, she's more relaxed because she knows we're running the pack so she doesn't have to. Dan's mom suggested the possibility that maybe Emma didn't escape from her home, she was set loose. It's a possibility, she was found in an area with a lot of people, so they could have abandoned her rather than turn her over. She is such a pretty dog, and really very sweet, I think the lack of training shows inexperience but she was well fed and well groomed, she was clearly cared for by her previous owners.

And in other news...

I had my 20ish week ultrasound and checkup. The ultrasound happened at 21 weeks and checkup at 22. Baby was perfect at both! Dan didn't get to come to the ultrasound because he was watching our friend's baby that day also, but it's ok because I'm going back for another in a couple of weeks and hopefully he can come to that one. The tech got lots of great shots, this is one of my favorites, Baby is looking at us :) This baby is measuring spot on in both ultrasound and my tummy measurements, Joey was at least a week ahead pretty much the whole time. So my early prediction is that this one will come around his estimated due date. I finally got to see another midwife, through crazy events and busy days, I've seen the same one 3 times in a row now, and they want us to see everyone so nobody's a stranger. I like both of the ones I've seen now, and the new MW even knew about SPD and suggestions to help with the pain. I definitely had it last time with Joey and my doctor shrugged it off as part of the aches and pains of being pregnant. The MW recommended a chiropractor and I'll be calling them to see if they take our insurance, I really hope they do. In the meantime, a pregnancy belt should help, or anything that compresses the tops of my hips and keeps the weight of my belly up and off the front of my pelvis.

Another thing I like about going to the midwives is right now I'm going back every 6 weeks instead of every 4. I'm not sure how long this will last, but the longer span of time between appointments is a nice break, especially since I know that I'll be there more often towards the end. I did have to schedule my glucose testing for next time though, hopefully I'll pass just fine and not need to do the 3hr test again. I don't have problems with the drink at all, and even though I took my knitting and iPod with me, sitting in the same uncomfy chair on a Saturday for almost 4 hours was not my idea of a good time. If there were some recliners and a TV (and my knitting) I'd be all set, since it requires sitting in a waiting room with strangers who give you dirty looks when you just get up and go back without being called (which you're told to do because you're on a clock but they don't know that), it's not so great. Plus the fasting really, really sucks.

It's almost midnight now, which is the latest I've been up in a while. The only reason I've managed it is because Dan and Joey let me take a nap earlier (I wasn't feeling good, the nap helped a bit), and it's the only reason I allowed myself to stay up too. Normally I'm in bed and asleep by 10ish, but I haven't made too much progress on a big knitting project and I wanted to at least do SOMETHING. I didn't make as much progress as I would have liked during the time that Joey's been in bed, but that's my own fault for bringing my laptop. I wanted to start watching Dr. Who, but my hard drive needs to be cleaned out because now everything is running slow, so I ended up distracted on Facebook and catching up on blogs and random other things. Tomorrow we're visiting friends who live 45min away, I'll get knitting done in the car going to and from ;)

Night Weaning

Joey's been sleeping consistently in his crib in his room, which is awesome considering how hardcore we were co-sleeping a couple of months ago. At first, it was only a few hours at a time and he was still sleeping in bed with me or on the couch with Dan towards the end of the night. Now, I've been better about not falling asleep nursing him where we end up spending 2-4 hours asleep in the big bed. I noticed a while ago that Joey seemed to do much better during Dan's shifts of getting him when he woke up in his crib than mine. As an experiment over a weekend, Dan was the only one who went and got him, just to see what would happen. Joey slept a whopping 5 hour then 3 hour stretches, way more than he had since he'd started teething at 5mo. That clued me in to what was probably going to happen: Night Weaning. A few more days of just Dan rocking Joey back to sleep just proved my suspicions, even though Joey was still getting milk out of his cup at night (cow's milk), he wasn't expecting to nurse anymore so he was sleeping longer periods because he wasn't constantly sucking. I was actually surprised that part of the key to getting Joey to sleep longer was night weaning, but I shouldn't be I guess. When he didn't have something to suck on from the beginning (Dan's shifts), he slept longer because he didn't suddenly realize that he was missing something. When he fell asleep nursing with me, he would wake up frequently because he would realize that something was different and he wanted it back! Not so surprising when I think about it really, I would wake up too if my pillow were suddenly gone and I'd be pretty upset.

After almost a week of only Dan getting up to rock Joey, I started going in, wearing one of Dan's shirts, and just rocking him back to sleep instead of nursing. Having Dan's shirt definitely helped, as did the near-week of no nursing at night, because he went back to sleep just fine and has been more and more consistent in his sleep habits since! We've had couple of bad nights where I've had to revert to nursing because he woke all the way up and just refused to go back down with only being rocked, but those are getting further and further apart. As I write this, probably later in the morning than I should because I need to be getting ready for work, it's just after 5:00am and Joey has been asleep since 10pm last night! He woke up once after Dan came to bed, but I don't think he even really woke up because when I went to go check on him, he was still lying in his crib (sitting up is usual), so instead of picking him up, I turned on his music giraffe and started humming and rubbing his back. He fussed a little, but didn't get up and eventually I could hear his breathing change and he was back asleep. I'm hoping this means we'll have to actually pick him up less because that's the next step in the transition, it would be great if he could move on himself and we don't have to deal with extra fussing because he wants to be rocked. *Fingers crossed*

I'm glad we started this whole transition when we did, I knew it was going to take a while because we didn't want to do "Cry It Out" at all. Pretty much patience the only other option besides CIO (or co-sleep until they decide to sleep all night, but we couldn't do that with a new baby on the way), even then, they can revert back after whatever you do because of teething/illness/routine change/etc. and you get some rough nights and just have to try and be consistent until everything goes back to normal. I'm currently 22 weeks pregnant and with 18 left to go, I think we might actually have Joey sleeping consistently through the night by the time New Baby gets here to wreck all the sleep habits we're creating for ourselves ;)

Knitting: A Story of WIPs

I'm still knitting, though not nearly as much as when Joey was small enough to sit there and stare at the ceiling. He is getting into everything which makes knitting while he's awake somewhat difficult. I try and fit some in during my lunch break at work (I have a new full time job now!), but that doesn't always happen. I'd love to stay up and knit after Joey goes down for the night but truth be told, 9 times out of 10, I fall asleep when he does too. Technically, I have 4 WIPs right now, though one is only in the swatching phase. I LOVE the pattern (one I actually paid for) and it requires a lot of yarn (1100yds!), I decided that I really wanted to buy local and support my LYS (Local Yarn Store), especially since one opened up super close by last fall! I stopped there yesterday on my way home just to see what they had. Disappointingly, they didn't have the brand and weight I wanted, but I did get two hanks of a close yarn in a color I liked. I also got new needles because the pattern calls for size 15 :) Got home, swatched, and was not 100% sold on the yarn for the project. It's a lovely yarn, and it's currently being used in a WIP I started this morning, but it's just not right for the big project. So, I ordered the yarn called for in the pattern online and once it gets here we'll see if I like that better.

In the meantime, I was browsing patterns while Joey was napping and came across this:

OMG! So cute! I haven't actually finished knitting anything for Joey (there's a blanket in hibernation that's likely to stay there) and this looked fun and easy. So far, it's been interesting. I'm still on the spiral part of the shell, and achieving that spiral is something new to me, but it's definitely looking like it's going to be a reasonably quick project. Joey really has enough toys, but I hope he likes this one. If he doesn't, I'm totally keeping it!

This is one of my other WIPs. It's on hold while I wait for more yarn. I spent enough on yarn this paycheck, so I'm waiting until the next one (or possibly the one after that, depending on how the Big Project is going). It's much farther along than this picture shows, but it's the only picture I have and I looooove the colors, so I wanted to share. It's going to be an open-front cardigan that I'll probably keep at work for when the AC gets chilly. The sleeves are little cap sleeves and are actually as done as they're going to get in this picture, unless I decided to crochet a border on them or something. There will be 3 buttons in the brown part, then no more all down the front, which means I'll still be able to wear it even when my belly is huge. :)

Let's Compare: 9 weeks vs. 18 weeks

This is my belly at 9 weeks with new baby. Not really a whole lot going on that wasn't there already, as far as size and shape goes. Those are still pre-preggo pants, although I've been using a belly band for a while because it's more comfortable than a belt. At 9 weeks my uterus was still tipped way far back and I wasn't feeling a whole lot of anything. I didn't even get to hear the baby's heart beat until the 16 week checkup because of how far back my uterus was. The midwives said I could have another ultrasound if I wanted some reassurance that the baby was ok (this was prior to the 16 week appointment and hearing it), since there's not a history of miscarriage in my family (and I didn't feel like holding my bladder AGAIN), I was fine with waiting until my elective gender ultrasound. Morning sickness was still in full swing as was the exhaustion, I was counting down the days until Trimester 2 when the symptoms would subside.

Fast forward to today: 18 weeks and 1 day. For the most part I am symptom-free, the only ones that really get me are occasionally I do need a mid-day nap, AND I do not respond well to heat at all. For a while I thought the morning sickness was sticking around well into the second trimester, then I noticed a pattern: I was only getting sick on days I worked, and even then, I was only getting sick after my shower. Eventually I figured out that combining the empty stomach (on days I work breakfast comes after shower) with the humidity and heat of the shower was making me sick. I also realized that my shower gets hotter as time goes on, especially if I'm not paying attention, which exacerbated the situation. Now that I've been keeping an eye on the water temp, I've felt MUCH better in the morning. After the 16 week checkup, I didn't have to go back for another 6 weeks, so around 22 weeks I'll be back. We did finally hear the baby's heartbeat, a nice, steady 150 range. I also went and had the gender ultrasound as a present for Dan for Father's Day. And we're having....

Another BOY!

We're very excited (though I was hoping for a girl this time, I still love my boys) and I'm glad that we don't have to get a whole new wardrobe. I'm not going to believe it 100% until the anatomy scan in a couple weeks (around 20 weeks) because at 16 weeks everything was really smalls. Dan and the tech were quite sure about #2's gender, and I can totally see this being a boy, I'm just not all the way convinced until 20 weeks when everything has had a chance to grow ;)

So this pregnancy I will actually have had the same amount of ultrasounds as last time (unless, God-forbid, something changes and I become high-risk). I had one at 10 weeks, one at 16 (earlier than the first elective u/s last time), one around 20, and I'll get another 3D late one because it's such a good deal and I don't like going the whole second half of the pregnancy without seeing the baby.

My parents finally opened the pool and the water warmed up enough to go swimming! I'm so happy to be able to go swimming all summer long instead of having to wait until getting the OK from my doc like last summer (6 week post partum wait). Joey likes the pool too! We've been swimming twice so far and both times he was in the water for over an hour. I know in the weeks to come I'll be very glad for the near-weightlessness offered by the water and the pressure on my hips increases. I only went swimming once while pregnant with Joey and it was very late in the game, but felt oh-so-good!

And just for fun, here's my 18 week picture from being pregnant with Joey:

Super Update!

It has been way too long since I've posted! Joey does not let me get too much done on the computer, that's for sure! Right now he's distracted by some pizza crust so I think I bought myself some time ;)

I'll start in April seeing as that's the month I completely neglected. In mid-April we went public with some very exciting news: I'm pregnant again! I'm due in November and we've known since March but kept it quiet for as long as we could mostly because I still had to wait until April to be able to get an ultrasound. I've decided to get my pre-natal care at a local birthing center with midwives as well as deliver there if possible. During my first visit, I expressed my concern to the (male) midwife about possibly having another cyst develop on my only remaining ovary. I wanted to at least KNOW if there was one there early enough even if we couldn't do anything about it until after the delivery (there's a concern of pre-term labor with some procedures during pregnancy). The MW was very sympathetic and wrote me an order for an ultrasound so we could check.

10 Weeks :)

About a week later I had my appointment and was very excited. It was too early at my first MW appointment to hear the baby heartbeat with the doppler and they don't have an in-house ultrasound machine like my other OB had. So I drink my 16oz of fluid and fill my bladder and head over for one of my favorite perks of pregnancy. The tech was very nice and when she asked if we were dating the pregnancy or checking viability I told her about my cyst history and she made sure to check "both" ovaries. I noticed that she hovered over where my right one used to be and made a note about it being gone (specifically she put "oophorectomy" which is the name of the type of surgery I had). When she checked out the left one, she said, "There it is, nice and small and normal!" I was soooo relieved. I mean, we want to adopt eventually anyway, but the fact that I won't have to have any extra procedures is awesome.

That pretty much brings us back to the J-man. Even though he's not quite walking yet, it's pretty safe to call him a Toddler. He's full of energy, into everything, and loves loves loves to climb. My milk supply started to go down because of the pregnancy and so we decided to start solids around 11 months instead of after his first birthday. I wasn't disappointed we couldn't go exclusive for a full year (ok, maybe a little bit) because I learned a while back not to make plans when it comes to kids. Set goals and if you meet them great, if you come close that's pretty good, and if you don't make them at all set new ones and start over. We came pretty close and I'm proud of how far we made it. Downside is that Joey didn't take to solids as quickly as I had hoped for an older baby so we also had to start supplementing with formula because of how low my milk dwindled. Supplementing just reinforces my goal of exclusively BFing with the next one if possible because formula is just so expensive. Thankfully now that Joey is over one year we can start giving him whole cow's milk. Between the cow's milk and the solids he's eating more of we were able to cut back a little bit on how much formula he drinks but we won't be cutting it out completely for a little while. He's still nursing when I'm home, still nurses to sleep at night and all through the night (though thankfully less now than before we started him on formula), but I can typically go an entire work shift not pumping and not be uncomfortable. I still pump at work so Dan can give Joey SOMETHING while I'm gone, but I'm not as stressed about it because it's not longer Joey's sole source of nutrition.

It was also good we started Joey on solids early because at first he didn't quite know what to do with food, so had we waited until his birthday, he wouldn't have eaten any cake at all. I knew going in to giving him cake that he wasn't going to be happy, so far he has not enjoyed having messy food all over his hands and the icing on the cake was no different. It's all over his face because after it was all over his hands, he got mad and rubbed his eyes and then proceeded to wipe it all over his stomach. Once he started licking his fingers he realized that he liked the cake and wanted more so I cut some pieces without frosting and he was ok with those, still unsure though about how he liked the texture. After we were done with the cake I took him into the bathroom to "hose" him off and he was not a happy camper. We were at my parents' house so their bathroom wasn't our bathroom and he was scared to death of both the shower head AND the loofahs that were hanging in the shower. Poor thing screamed and screamed until we were finally done and dried him off. After all the screaming and crying, he slept pretty well that night, thankfully. Foods he currently eats regularly are: garlic Triscuits, goldfish crackers, pizza crust, chicken nuggets, bacon, and french fries. We're attempting to get healthy food in him too but so far it's no dice.

March Update

 Not too much has changed since I last posted, not much besides Joey anyway. He's definitely taller and MUCH more talkative. He is getting really good at his syllables, especially "ma ma" and he uses that in reference to me which, of course, makes me melt every time. Dan said that the other day while I was at work, Joey spent the whole time "looking" for me and saying "ma ma" asking where I was. He kept wanting to look in the bedroom (where I'll take a nap sometimes) or in the kitchen (where I'll hide when HE needs to nap and Daddy rocks him), so he's also getting pretty smart. He's got 8 teeth, all in front, and likes to use his mouth as a 3rd hand to help him when he's attempting to climb. He is really good at pulling himself up to standing now, and cruises the furniture with ease, so we're definitely not far from actually walking. Yesterday, I put him in his pack 'n play while I got some things done in the kitchen, and when I looked in to check on him, I found him pulling himself to standing, then letting go and seeing how long he could stand without help! One day he's just going to take off running and we'll just have to try and keep up ;)

He LOVES bath time and his current favorite toy is the shampoo bottle. No idea why, but it has been for the last week or so. I can't wait until summer because I know he is just going to adore being in the pool! I'm excited for the pool too because last year I had to wait until basically July before I could swim because of the 6-week-wait after Joey's delivery. I was so impatient, half the time I had my feet in the pool or I'd walk around on the steps just trying to cool off! This time I'll be able to fully enjoy the pool all summer and I'm happy for it :)

Exclusively Nursing a 9 Month Old

Seeing as it's been a month since I've posted anything, I wanted to talk about SOMETHING so I decided to write a post based on a couple conversations I've had at work with other moms. Joey is still being fed exclusively by breastmilk. I do have to work, so he doesn't get it exclusively from the tap but it is the only nourishment he's received since my surgery last June (when I didn't have a stash built up and we had to supplement with formula). He hasn't had any formula since then and the only other thing besides breastmilk that he's had has been water. He started sucking on his washcloths in the bathtub so there really wasn't much I could to do stop him, so when we got new sippy cups for him to try, we put water in them so a) we wouldn't waste milk and b) he couldn't make a huge mess with milk if they leaked. He also knows how to get water out of our Camelbak bottles which I find hilariously cute. Anyway...

For a couple of weeks now, Joey has been especially mobile, he's figured out crawling for the most part and loves to pull himself up to standing. Because of all this activity, he mostly nurses at night even on days that I don't have to work. He's too busy to stop playing/exploring to nurse quietly for more than a minute or two. Sometimes he does forget that he's hungry and get fussy until he's gorged himself, but even then, at 9 months, that takes like 10-15 minutes max. When he does nurse during the day, it can be pretty hilarious. For one thing, he's been a little nursing acrobat for months now--pretty much once he figured out how to control his own legs. He loves sticking one of his legs up on the other boob or his new favorite is crossing them and pulling them in like he's a little baby. He's almost constantly moving, even when nursing, if it's not his legs then it's his wandering hands (of they're playing if he's got a toy or I'm wearing an interesting shirt).

When Joey is feeling especially mobile but still wants to nurse, he spends the session attempting to get up on all fours while still latched on. He's done this successfully several times now! If we're sitting on the floor and I've got him in my lap with my legs crossed, he'll wiggle his way completely onto the floor. If we're lying down, he likes to climb all over me and see how many different ways he can latch on--including being completely on my stomach directly over my boob (that one didn't work so well)!

Most of the time I find all of this funny and adorable, but occasionally when I want a nap or when I need him to nap, it can be frustrating. Sometimes I do miss when he was a month old and would just lie there and nurse then fall asleep and unlatch himself because he passed out. He doesn't do the "milk drunk" smile anymore, instead he unlatches, smiles at me then gargles his milk. He only falls asleep while nursing now if it's bedtime--and sometimes not even then (we're getting more consistent with our bedtime routine and that's helping).

I do love the interaction now, he likes to touch my face or hair, play with my shirt or his foot. He's not a bystander in the feeding process, he is an active participant! Nursing now (most of the time) is a wordless conversation, he's learning and growing so fast that it's hard for me to keep up, and stopping to nurse reminds me to stop and just breathe in his babyhood and enjoy the moment we're sharing.

Although, sometimes I am just feeding the kid, one hand holding my boob and the other typing or texting (or playing Fruit Ninja!). It's not always an intimate, beautiful moment, but it is a special relationship that I will always treasure.