Pumping Sucks.

Ha!  Get it?  Pumping sucks?  True on so many levels...

Anyway, Otis ended up back in the NICU last week with a really low temp and no weight gain.  So I'm back to pumping milk to bring to him at the hospital.  Yesterday I met with the lactation consultant and she told me how much milk I'm supposed to be producing and I cringed.  I'm not doing so well apparently.  I tend to get busy and let time slip by and before I know it, five hours has passed between sessions.  Today I have made it my goal to pump every two and a half hours. 

That takes up my whole freakin' day!!  By the time I'm done and clean up my supplies, it's almost time to do it again.  I can see why people give up so easily in the early days and just go to bottles!  But I am determined to get this thing established so I can nurse Otis when he gets home.  DETERMINED!!  That is one thing the L.C. told me was that it's more about the mom sticking to it than actual milk supply.  If you want to nurse, you usually can.  It's just about being willing to give up your days to the demand of sitting there hooked up like a milk cow...

Luckily Ingrid is enthralled with the pump and wants to help.  She loves to plug in the tubes and "turn on the noise" and if I do it without her she has a fit!  What a strange little girl!  First she's obsessed with cloth wipes, now she's obsessed with breast pumps :)  What am I doing to my poor child??  She is always talking about boob milk and baby milk and feeding her babies with her boobs, it's so funny to hear her.  I guess that's what happens when you're open and honest about things with your kids! 

Hopefully Otis will be released today or tomorrow (they keep pushing it back one more day...) and then I won't have to pump anymore.  I cannot wait until this kid is fat enough to take home and strong enough to eat what he needs to!  I keep forgetting how tiny he really is.  My due date isn't for another 26 days, so I need to remember that.  But he'll make it, and we'll have a long time to nurse after he comes home. 

I Do It Myself, Mama!

I love that Ingrid is little miss independent but man, it's testing my patience.  Especially at 5am, when she needs to go to the bathroom and is still sleep drunk and can't function, but refuses to admit it and allow me to help her...

That was this morning when she got me up to go to the bathroom.  I unzipped her footy pjs, pulled down her pull up and she climbed up on the seat.  Suddenly she realized that she wanted to unzip her pjs so she had a spectacular fit, jumping off the toilet, screaming she wanted to "do it myself, mama!!"  Ugh, seriously?  At 5am?  I tried explaining to her that she was already out of her pjs and I was not, in fact, going to let her put them back on only to take them off herself.  Not at 5am!!  She ended up screaming and crying until I put her pjs back on and ushered her back to bed, where she fell asleep for another couple hours.  Sigh.

Yesterday was a lot of  that--whatever I was doing she wanted to help.  I love that, I do, because I remember "helping" my mom do things around the house.  So when there's laundry to be folded, sure, help.  When I'm cutting things for my etsy shop and there are scraps, sure, go ahead and throw them away.  But if I'm making chili over a hot stove, no, you can't help. 

When I was cutting up peppers for said chili, I gave her a chunk of one and a butter knife and told her to go to town.  She then got frustrated she couldn't do it herself.  It's so hard because sometimes I do try to let her help with whatever she can, but then there are things she just isn't capable of and it makes her mad, but she won't NOT ask to help.  Does that make sense??  If I say  no, you can't do it, she gets mad.  If I say, sure, go ahead and try but then she can't do it, she gets mad.  I guess it's her problem not mine, right?  At least she's understanding her limits? 

Anyway, she's a great helper, she really does get a kick out of doing whatever it is I'm doing, and just lately she's started asking to sew with me.  I have so many ideas of little gifts for the holidays, like a kid sized broom, and those cardboard lacing cards.  But in the meantime, sometimes I just want to get stuff done.  In five minutes as opposed to an hour.  Patience, Amber, patience...