7 quick takes Monday Saturday Monday Wednesday

-1-

Riley isn't gaining weight. (According to my Wii Fit Plus). I measured him last week and he lost 0.4 pounds in a week. Today (5 days later) I weighed him and he didn't gain or lose, at 11 pounds even. I'm not sure what I should do. Perhaps he will be going through a growth spurt soon, and he will gain a lot. But also perhaps not. I've decided that if next week he has lost weight, I'll call his doctor. He doesn't seem unhealthy to me. (Update: Today, a week and a half later, Riley has gained 11 ounces! Weighing in at 11 pounds, 11 ounces!)

-2-

On Sunday Jamaal and I went out alone for the first time since Riley was born. My mom watched the booger. She said he screamed for the first 45 minutes after we left. I had pumped milk available for her to feed him with, and she ended up feeding him twice with only 45 minutes between feedings. He fell asleep during the first feeding, but woke up acting hungry again. She said that it could be part of his problem with being fussy. That perhaps he isn't getting enough food. I must admit that I took offense to this. My "work" for the last 14 weeks has been feeding Mr. Riley. I have lost sleep, cried and been stressed out over it. I feel like he is my trophy, the proof that I have been hard at work. You don't go into a flower shop and tell the gardener her flowers aren't pretty. Granted, he hasn't been gaining weight, see -1- above, but it really upset me. Since then I've been working on getting my milk supply up by pumping more, especially after he feeds.

-3-

I started this post on Monday, it is now Saturday. Unfortunately I only have one more Saturday left before I have to go back to work. I'm truly not looking forward to it. I'm thinking very serious about decreasing my percentage to 50%. If I need to pick up shifts I could do so pretty easily, but my manager basically told me she can't promise to give me the shifts I need to work for childcare reasons. So, if I work less, there is less chance I'll get screwed over. 50% is only an 8-hour shift and a 12-hour shift a week. So, I could work more than that one week, and less another week, to get larger chunks of time off.

-4-

It is now Monday again. :D It is crazy how time gets away from me, but I wouldn't change a thing. It gets difficult to blog when there is a screaming baby asking for attention or to be fed. He is starting to be big enough to nurse with only the Boppy as support, so that I have both hands free while sitting down. They sell a newborn booster, which would have been extremely useful, but I didn't realize they existed until a few weeks ago. And by then he would only need it for a few more weeks-a month. So, for you small chested ladies looking to breastfeed with your first or next child, I recommend getting a newborn booster to go with your Boppy. (And if you choose not to breastfeed, or it doesn't work out, still get the Boppy, because the baby can be positioned with it.) When Riley was first born, one of the first things I had Jamaal get me (besides a box of newborn size diapers, since we received only sizes 1 and above) was the Boppy pillow. It was something I had intended on buying before the baby came, but Riley had different plans. ;)

-5-

It is now Wednesday...next time I guess I can only do a couple quick takes. 7 quick takes takes me a week and a half! ;) Riley and I have been going for walks a lot lately. We take the girls as well. He rides in the Moby wrap, and seems to enjoy the time outdoors. The first time we went out, he looked around amazed by the trees and sky. It was cute. The second time we went out, he fell asleep almost immediately. And the third time, near the end he started fussing (and it also started to rain, so we stopped early). Last Sunday was the last 5K in the 3-part series, we did it in 58:35. Which is about 5 minutes longer than our last one. I was a bit dismayed, but I had an 11 pound weight on my front, so that probably slowed me down. Also, my mom was sort of congested so she probably needed to slow down a bit as well. This upcoming Sunday Jamaal, Riley and I are doing a 5K for MS in Seattle with some friends. I hope to do a couple more this year as well. :)

-6-

Speaking of this weekend, it is my last before I return to work. (Work will be discussed in take #7.) Jamaal's friends are coming into town for the MS 5K on Sunday. We are going out to a bar close by (where we know the bartender and get discounted drinks and food) on Saturday. It will be interesting. Jamaal's mom will be staying with Riley at our house, and will stay the night. I don't plan on drinking too much, but I do plan on having a drink or two. I want to go shopping for an outfit to wear, because I have a small selection of clothes that fit me well right now.

-7-

April 7th is my first day back to work. I'm really not looking forward to it. But at the same time, I'm looking forward to it. It is a weird feeling to dread something and yet be excited about it at the same time. For the first schedule back, I'll be working only 8-hour shifts. I have asked to be decreased to 50% at work. (Which means only working 80 hours in a 4 week period.) I will sign up for extra shifts as they become available, and as they fit my childcare needs. Working an 8 hour shift and a 12 hour shift a week is really quite ideal. :D I feel like I get to have the best of both worlds: time with Riley and time with adults. Also, I know how much Riley's grandparents will enjoy spending time with him. :D I'm extremely glad we won't have to use daycare, at least not at this time.

Sweet tooth

I think it is high time for a post with a more positive attitude. I realize I've sort of been writing about depressing topics and have been expressing some of my darker emotions. For that I am sorry, and hope you bear with me. Motherhood is absolutely amazing, but it definitely isn't easy either. When I'm feeling my best, I usually don't have my computer in front of me, it is usually when I'm in need of an escape that I find myself writing. The easiest thing to write about is what is weighing on my mind, and as you probably have guessed, it is the more difficult aspects of motherhood. Without further ado...

I don't know if you can get much more positive than fresh baked chocolate chip cookies.

I think I've mentioned before my husband's love of cookies. He can (and will) eat nearly a dozen cookies in one sitting. No cookies in the house? He'll devour half a bag of the chocolate chips, followed by a cold glass of milk. When I bake a batch of cookies, I find he will eat about a dozen fresh out of the oven, but only a couple day-old cookies. Sometimes when he's desperate he might nibble on a two-day-old cookie, but he'd probably rather have the other half of the bag of chocolate chips he broke into before. Leaving me with the leftovers. (because unlike my husband, I believe no sweet should be left behind, and they go straight to mine...)

So I devised a plan. He loves cookies, fresh out of the oven. And while cookie dough tubs/cubes are abundant in the stores, they sometimes don't taste as good, or are overpriced. SO I decided to do it myself.


I mix up a double batch of chocolate chip cookie dough, then proceed to scoop it out and form it into balls like I would if I were to bake them. Then I place them on on wax paper and put them in to the freezer to harden, to keep the sticky dough balls from making dough clumps. Once they harden a little, I put them in a large ziplock bag to keep in the freezer until ready to bake.


I don't add any time to the bake time (I pretty much always shave off a couple minutes when I make cookies so they don't get over baked) and usually put Chocolate Chip cookies in for 8 minutes. I don't even wait for the oven to get preheated all the way. I just turn it on before I put the cookies on the cookie sheet.


Which leads me to the question: Have you ever used Parchment paper? If you haven't, I absolutely love it, and recommend it. I will not go back to baking cookies without it. Cookies easily go from paper to plate, (or paper to mouth) only sometimes leaving a bit of melted chocolate behind (if you didn't let them cool all the way.).

It takes a bit of extra time to make cookies this way (since I make a double batch), but now my dear husband can have fresh baked cookies any night he likes, and doesn't have to hear my excuse as to why I don't have time to whip up a batch of cookies. (We won't even get into how much this method saves my hips.)

In the freezer to harden.

On parchment paper, ready for the oven.

Freshly baked cookies. Yum!

Sleep is good

It has been two weeks now since I last posted. Where has the time gone? Not too much has happened, as we do a lot of nothing around here. But as always, I've had some bad days and good days.

I've found that Riley does much better when he visits with family and friends. He must get bored of Jamaal and I. We might not be giving him as much attention as he desires, I suppose. Though I feel that I'm constantly talking with/holding/bouncing/flirting with little Mr. Riley. Perhaps he thinks that I have to love him, since I'm his mother, and wants to get attention from somewhere else too. Whatever the reason, on days that we get out of the house, he tends to fuss less.

The other day, when Riley was crying for some unknown reason, I began crying too. Why won't my baby just be happy? Why does he cry so much? I know that babies cry, but some days he is inconsolable. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to his crying. Which just makes me feel helpless, and makes me wonder what I am doing wrong. During one of the sleepless nights, I desperately searched the Internet for some magic fix to help him get to sleep. Of course I found none, but I did read something along the lines of: if what you are doing is making you feel desperate, or causing lots of stress, you need to make a change to find something that does work for you. There isn't one right way to skin a cat, as they say. So, I find myself picking and choosing bits and pieces from different parenting styles.

About a week ago, during our moments of desperation, we put him in the swing and he cried it out until he fell asleep. Each night, it didn't take nearly as long for him to fall asleep, but we realized we needed to be able to get him to sleep without motion, since he will eventually not be able to go into the swing anymore. So I tried just laying him down in his own bed. We had a couple (two) nights in a row where he slept decently. By that I mean he slept in his own bed for 2.5-3 hour sessions. I felt like I got a lot more sleep, because I was able to sleep in positions that are comfortable to me. When he is next to me, I find myself in awkward positions, and never fully relax while I sleep. Amazingly enough, each time I layed him down, (after he nursed to sleep) he stayed asleep. I thought it was a miracle. I bragged about it to my parents, and the next night after I set him down, he woke up after a few minutes. I checked for a burp, checked his pants, nothing.

So, we've begun along the cry-it-out pathway, which has turned into a huge power struggle between two adults and their little offspring. Let me tell you, he is a stubborn one. (Unfortunately I cannot deny that he got this from me.) I haven't really read any books on the cry-it-out method, so we are kind of winging it. He is still right next to our bed, so we don't sleep at all while he cries. The night before last, after he cried for 45 minutes with no signs of stopping (we talked to him and comforted him a bit off and on), I said screw it, and brought him into bed with us. He then nursed and slept next to me for 5.5 hours.

Last night, same story. After crying and not acting like he would ever stop, I picked him up and put him in the swing, (which we still have in our room) and turned the music on its loudest setting. He stopped crying immediately. He didn't go to sleep immediately, but he was quiet and eventually fell asleep. I don't know when he fell asleep, because I woke up 6 hours later. I still get disoriented after long periods of sleep. I wake in sort of a panic. This morning was no different, I sat up, looked in his crib to find it empty, then remembered I had put him in the swing.

We are, as I said before, winging it right now. I'm not sure what I will do tonight. I end up doing what works that night. Unfortunately, we are quickly approaching the day when I return to work, so I have to find something that works for us. As it is he doesn't like to go to bed until 2300 or later, and I will have to get up around 0430 to feed him one last time and get ready for work. 4-5 hours will not cut it for me, especially when he often wakes every 2-3 hours to feed. I'm extremely nervous to go back.

I'm considering cutting back my hours even more, because I'm not sure I will like being away from him too much. The first schedule I'll go back to is a partial schedule, and if after a week I realize it is too much time away, I will cut down my hours. We have been making it on decreased pay, but I'll have to make sure that we could continue to make it on decreased pay. Oh how I wish I didn't have to work...

The little booger has woken up, so I have to go.