"hello?" she whispers into the cavernous void...

"is anyone still out there?"

....silence....

Maybe not.  Most days I'm not even sure if I'm here.  But maybe you are. And maybe you're reading this.  Or maybe I'm just writing for myself, and that's ok as well.  Or maybe I'm writing because our internet keeps going down at work and I can't really get anything accomplished.

Cameron is 8 and a half months old, y'all.  SERIOUSLY. Where is the time going!?  Something weird happens when babies hit 8 months.  It's like a woman's ovaries go into overdrive and all of a sudden I WANT ALL THE BABIES.  And not in a creepy "A Modest Proposal" sort of way, but in a please-just-let-me-smell-the-baby sort of way. Ok that's kind of creepy too.

Somehow, a smiling, happy, mama-mama saying baby can erase the anxiety and the hurt and the fear of the first three months of his life, almost.  I say *almost* because I can't quite seem to forget the feeling of those first three months.  Even now writing this, I feel my chest tense up.  And if--somehow--I could just manage to forget, just a little bit, I could consider having another baby.

My brother and his wife had a baby girl three weeks ago.  When we went to visit them, they had her in the swing with the music playing, and the memory of that swing and music sent me in to panic attack mode.  It's real, y'all.  So maybe I can't do it now  Maybe all I can do is to focus on the two precious boys I have.

So...here's a round-up of what's going on around here.

Daniel is 2 and a half and started PK2 at the school where I work.  He potty trained like a freakin champ.  I feel like we're going through a purposefully rebellious stage right now, acting out at school, peeing in his brother's trashcan, throwing food in the dog's water bowl, but maybe that's just being 2 years old.  Parenting is an ever-changing thing, and we're just working to figure out what works in terms of discipline.  He's a very auditory learner so we have a lot of discussions and repetition.  But he's the sweetest boy. He never sits still (unless to watch the same Curious George episode again) and he adores his daddy and his little brother. And his teddy.

Cam is close to 9 months.  He smiles at the drop of a hat and rarely cries.  He crawls and is in to EVERYTHING, his favorite things being Daniel's toys.  He sleeps in his crib all night (and yeah, that didn't happen until almost 5 months).  He still seems to hate naps on most days, but we're getting better.  He sleeps through the night most nights and is an early riser like me and his brother.  He wants to stand and walk so badly, but he's not quite there.  I could squish and kiss him all day, and I'm pretty sure his favorite place to be is sitting on my hip.  He refuses most purees in favor of real food, which makes my life easier because I can feed both boys the same thing  We made it to about six months of nursing, and then my supply dropped and I went back to work, so I swallowed my guilt and my pride and started him on formula. He's growing like a weed (maybe more out that up!) and we call him our little linebacker, a stocky, squatty little boy.

As for me...well I'm here.  Trying to survive every day as a full-time working momma of two boys. Some days I feel like I rock it (like when I take the boys for a dinner picnic to the park); other days I want a glass of wine by 9 am. I'm currently training for a Tough Mudder and 3 half marathons. Because that's what I do for ME.  I don't have time to get my nails done, but this I do and I do it for me only.  It keeps me sane.

So in a nutshell, I'm here.

Even if no one else is.

...I'll fill the cavernous void with some words, at least for right now...

A Retraction of Sorts

Last Friday, I posted and subsequently un-posted about working moms.  I had been wanting to write a post about working moms for a while, but I just couldn't find the words.  After writing and publishing last Friday, I realized that I still hadn't found the right words.  I wasn't ashamed of what I'd written, but I realized that it wasn't what I wanted to say.

My best, dearest friend, who is a SAHM, texted me regarding the post, and that's what made me think. We started talking back and forth and I realized something: SAHM, working mom, it doesn't matter.  We feel the need to defend what we do, be it working or staying home.  And as my conversation with her went on, I came to that conclusion.  There is no rank or betterness to one way or the other, yet because of the judgement and strong opinions of others, we always feel the need to defend what we do.  When I stayed home with D before going back to work, Sparky would come home and I'd give him a laundry list of what I did around the house that day.  He didn't ask, but I felt the need to PROVE that I had done something, defend my staying at home.

I realize that some of my defensiveness is part of my personality.  Because I constantly feel the need to be the best at everything and feel that everyone is looking to me to be the best, I get defensive when I feel that I may not be doing something exactly right.  I guess, in this case, the "not doing something exactly right" would be staying home with my son.  And who's "right" is that?  I'm not sure it's mine, or D's, or Sparky's.

Stirrup Queens wrote a post this week about everything being "too loud." I could not agree more.  While I love Pinterest and Instagram and Facebook, for women like me who want to be everything to everyone, they are belittling reminders of what I'm not.  I love my Christmas decor until I see what so-and-so made out of empty bottles and epsom salt.  I'm happy with my crockpot dinners until so-and-so reveals that she's eating clean and shopping only organic (with a picture at a farmer's market).  I think D's nursery/outfit/younameit is perfect until so-and-so's son is wearing a personalized Christmas outfit sewn by Coco Chanel herself.  You get the point.  It's not greed or jealousy that I feel, but a feeling that makes me want to crawl back into bed, yet I know that I shouldn't be in bed, I should be crafting a nativity out of popsicle sticks and cotton balls.   I thought that turning 30 meant I wouldn't care what people thought about me; turns out, turning 30 just means that now I care what people think about my son, too.  (if you know me in real life, you're not surprised that I don't let D wear the same thing to school, ever).  I'm not sure men feel this kind of pressure, at least I know Sparky doesn't. Is this just my personality, or do others feel this too?

How do we turn down the volume?

Being a mom--no matter what kind--is hard stuff. Like, the hardest thing I've done in my life.  We all have our little shoulder devils that whisper in our ears and tell us we're not good enough because of (fill in the blank...).  We all feel the need to justify or defend ourselves.  If we stopped looking to other people's "rights" and just found our own, maybe this shoulder devil would go away, or at least become a quiet whisper, not a roaring growl.

Weaning by the numbers

Little D is 9 months today. NINE MONTHS! He is crazy, crawling boy and thinks he can walk, though he cannot.  I told myself that I would breastfeed until he was 9 months, and now that it's here, I'm walking a fine line between weaning and not weaning.

As of last week, I have stopped pumping at work.  As of today, I have no more frozen breastmilk in my freezer. Sad day.  All that means is that I nurse D 3 times a day (AM, 4:00pm, night time) and then he gets 2 bottles when he's at school.  He's boycotting the bottle right now, but that's a post for another time, along with my (his?) food woes.  After our baby-less trip last weekend--4 days away total--I was afraid that my milk was just gone. I could barely pump 2 ounces and I was sad, because even if I weaned D during the day, I at least wanted to nurse him in the morning and before bed.  But as soon as we got home and I started nursing again, my body stepped up and met his needs. Pretty awesome.

Breastfeeding this long is one of my greatest accomplishments, and I think I've done a lot of pretty good things in my life.  We struggled; at 3 weeks I wanted to throw out the boob and in the bottle, but we persevered.  I am so proud of myself, and if you know me at all, you know it takes a lot for me to give myself kuddos or a pat on the boob for anything.  My goal is to nurse him, at least AM and PM, until he turns 1, or until there's a baby #2 that may make nursing him impossible.  While I do miss being able to feed him five times a day on the weekend, I do NOT miss the close, personal relationship with my pump.

I bid a fond farewell to the whiny pump noise...and as a parting gift, here are some numbers...

• 80--days I pumped at work (since August only)
• 4800--minutes I spent pumping at work (since August only)
• 120--disposable pump wipes I used
• 3--boxes of breastmilk storage bags now gone
• 160--ounces of milk I once had in my freezer
• 2--ounces of milk I ended up pumping once D started eating more solids
• 6--bottles of Fenugreek I've gone through since February
• 8--times D has bitten me since he's gotten teeth (a relatively low number considering he's had teeth for a while now)
• 4--ounces of milk/formula D is drinking at each feeding, when he decides he wants the bottle
• 4--airport bathrooms in different cities in which I have pumped
• 3--states I have pumped in 
• 2--times I've had to take out multiple bags of breastmilk to go through TSA security
• 1--time I was asked "ma'am, what is in that bag" referring to my pump
• 1--wedding dinner I've had to leave to pump 
• 0--number of times I regret schlepping my pump EVERYWHERE 

A post I've been writing in my head for some time about working moms v. SAHMs is imminent, once I get the clarity of mind to write all of the thoughts down that are crammed in my head. 

Happy Thanksgiving :)

A Day In the Life...

I just read a wonderful post from Our Griswold about her life as a working momma of twins.  I don't want to link it because I can't remember if she's private or not!  So I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on my life as a working momma.  When I'm old and senile, I want to remember what it was like to be young and feel like you could take on the world :)

I start the day around 4:45 am. I roll groaningly jump out of bed with the first sound of my alarm.  Sparks continues to be amazed--even after 6 years of marriage--that I have never "snoozed" in my life.  I mentioned the other day that I don't even know how to snooze on the iPhone.  Shower, wash hair (well, every other day) and I mention washing hair because washing, prepping, and drying crazy curly hair (c-c-c-curly!) is a task in and of itself.  5:15, coffee pot beeps, big cup of coffee, get ready.  In kitchen by 5:55. Put away clean dishes, do a load of laundry and/or unload dishwasher, shove a bowl of oatmeal down my throat, feed dog, give dog medicine.

At 6:25, I'm upstairs in D's nursery, singing him the "rise and shine" song and waking up my lil muffin.  I HATE waking him up :( the only thing that makes it better is the huge smile I get when he rolls over.  Get D dressed, nurse D, get myself dressed, wash D's face (you would think I was killing him when I wash his face). Put D in carseat, take D out of carseat to change poopy diaper.  seriously, it's like carseat = poop time!  Get bottles/D's lunch out of fridge, pack D's bag, give puppy her treat, pack car, pack D. Out the door by 6:55.

Drop D off at "school," talk to D's teacher about how crazy I am that I packed him a tiny little container of applesauce as his treat for eating his carrots/corn/potatoes (freshly made, of course), give D a kiss, off to work.

Work, pump, work, pump, work, 7:30-2.  Pick D up (yay! I love this part! He holds his hands up to me and smiles!).  D nap, 2:30-3:30, on a good day.  During this time, I run around like a crazy woman washing bottles, washing pump parts, washing tupperware.  I make D's bottles and lunch for the next day, make my lunch, make coffee, and usually get maybe a load of laundry in or a batch of baby food made or dinner prepped before nap time is over.  I devote 3:30-bedtime to playing with D.  Hopefully with the cooler weather coming I'll be able to start running again, with D of course. That's the one thing I've given up to make life work, and I miss it like crazy. Sparky gets home around 5:45 and I usually hand D over to him for daddy play or swim time, before and after D's dinner.

6:00--dinner time for D (chicken, veggie, fruit for dessert), followed by 15 minutes of Baby First TV (love this channel).  During that 15 minutes, Sparks sits with D and I clean up the kitchen and do some dinner prep.  6:45, bath time, book, boob, bed. And I'm downstairs by 7:20.  Cook dinner (or Sparks cooks), eat dinner, do grad school work or grade papers until bedtime at 10, or whenever I pass out on the couch.  And then we're up at 4:45 to start all over again.  Thank goodness D sleeps from 7:20-6:20 or I don't know how I'd get anything done.  I KNOW I am sooo blessed to have that.

This weekend, I'm leaving D for the first time! My future cousin-in-law's bachelorette party is in DC this weekend, and I'm going.  I'm still going strong with the breastfeeding, so my trusty pump will make its way there with me and hopefully I won't notice too much difference in my supply when I get home if I skip a pumping or two.  My goal is to EBF until early November and then wean D to just a morning/night feeding. Our cousin's wedding is in November and we'll be away from baby for 4 days and it's not logical that I can pump every feeding during that 4 days.  I LOVE bf'ing and I'll be sad to wean D, but I know that if we do truly want to start TTC again, I should at least start weaning him.  More on that another time :)

And of course, no post is complete without a picture of my almost-crawler.

You can't really tell, but his cold was in full swing in this picture