Success!

Nestle Good Start formula it is! I did the 1/4 formula, 3/4 milk mixture for one of Ava's bottles yesterday...she didn't drink the whole thing but she did pretty good. Was a little gassy afterwards but didn't throw up or anything....and apparently it didn't bother her too badly, as I had her down at 10pm and it's now 9am and she's still asleep. Unfortunately, the Good Start--recommended by our pediatrician--is NOT one of the brands I had a million sample containers of. Oh well...obviously I don't mind spending the money on a formula that actually agrees with my kid's stomach! (If you are reading this and can use Similac Advance, Similac Advance Soy, or Enfamil Lipil, let me know....I have a bunch of all three!) Anyhow, we'll gradually move up to 1/2 milk, 1/2 formula and then stay there for awhile. When she's about 6 months old I'm going to stop pumping and give her just formula during the day, maybe continue milk in the mornings and evenings for a couple of months, and then that's it. Or at least, that's the plan for now: I've learned that as of January 8th, 2008, most plans I make are now tentative at best. ;o)

In other news, I went in to work yesterday for one of my teacher work days...spent a lot of time trying to reorganize things that needed reorganizing (I do not want to go there. If you want details, email me...let's just say I was not a happy camper...) and planning fourth quarter. I really have missed working. Of course, I say that now while the students aren't there...! ;o) Seriously though, I miss the majority of the kids as well, because I really do like my job. I'll be nice to get back into the swing of things...to have a routine, and occasional adult conversation! Fourth quarter is usually pretty good, it's getting nice outside so that improves everyone's mood; it's not a horribly long quarter so having the end in sight makes things more manageable (for us AND the kids!), and we have the traditional fun 7th grade end-of-year field trip. We take the kids to a nearby rec center and they ice skate, play soccer, and eat pizza. One of the other teachers and I always skate with the kids, unfortunately I had to sit out last year as I was about 8 weeks pregnant and sick as a dog. This year should be fun!

In one week...

...I'll officially be a working mom. I did work a few hours yesterday--planning my classes for next quarter--but next Friday is the official teacher workday before school starts again on April 7th. Ava will be spending the day with Daddy, how fun! I know they'll enjoy the daddy-daughter time. Craig is very good with her. This morning, she got up a few minutes before 6am to eat (was down for about 8 hours, less than normal for her, so I'd only gotten about 5 hours of sleep) so I fed her and put her down and then had to pump. Unfortunately, my milk supply was not being cooperative this morning so it took FOREVER and I didn't quite get the amount I was hoping for. Anyhow, as a result I had hardly crawled back into bed before she was fussing again. I asked Craig to get up with her for a few minutes....not only did he do that, but he took her downstairs and played with her AND gave her a bottle. I got to rest a little longer, which was wonderful. Now she's sitting next to me on her pod, smiling and occasionally making happy noises.

Wow...I totally got off topic here. About the working: I'm feeling much better about things. I'm sure I'll be sad that first week she's in day care, and I'm sure it'll be hard to balance all of my responsibilities at first, but I'm actually looking forward to working again.

This has nothing to do with anything.

It can be categorized under "random crap that annoys me." I know, that's a very big category. What is it this time? Television commercials and their blatant sexism. Oh, it goes both ways, I'm not just going all angry feminist or anything...for example, there's the recent Hair Club for Men commercial. Basically what that commercial boils down to is that if you are a man, you have to have a thick pelt of hair on your head or women won't come within ten miles of you. Yes, that's right, we are all a bunch of superficial hosebags who only care about appearances, and more specifically, hair. We couldn't *possibly* like a man for being funny, intelligent, or kind. And if you have pretty man-hair, we'll fawn all over you and cling to your arm when you are in a swimming pool. UGH!!! Then, there are the commercials that portray the women as all-knowing and perfect, and their husbands as a bunch of bumbling idiots. It's all about what MOMS know in commercials. Uhhhh....my husband knows how to cook and change diapers and could probably figure out how to wipe up a stain from the carpet or apply ointment to a cut (Yes, Neosporin commercial, I'M TALKING TO YOU!), and I'm pretty sure he's not the only man on the planet capable of such things. It's always the cute little stay-at-home moms with their khaki pants (or SKIRTS...!) and sweater sets and nice shoes. Let me tell you, after staying at home for nearly three months, I can say that no woman who spends her day caring for small children would be caught dead in those clothes unless there was some reason to look nice (lunch date, going to the doctor's office, etc. etc.)...it's all about comfy pants and shirts that can withstand spit-up. Don't get me wrong, you can still look cute, but wearing dressy clothing is just not happening when you are at home around small children all day...this isn't 1955, we women are capable of wearing clothes that make sense for the job we are doing: skirts and heels are for the office, comfy pants are for taking care of the kids. Duh.

Here's one commercial that I *do* like, simply because it is bizarre and amuses me and is completely devoid of sexist stereotypes:

update a few hours later

So, Ava went back down easy after that feeding and slept until 10am, giving me a couple more much needed hours of sleep! She's napping right now, I fed her and then Craig and I took turns holding her before I put her on the Baby Einstein mat, where she's now napping peacefully. And I forgot to mention--yesterday when I was trying to get her to take a nap, she DID doze off a couple of times, both in the car, but when I tried to transfer her to the crib she would wake up and smile at me. I tried to ignore the smile, thinking if I did that maybe she'd just doze back off, but she kept smiling and then she'd coo at me (still smiling) and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't help but laugh. Which of course made her smile and coo even more. I know that little stinker knew EXACTLY what she was doing, too! Ah well. Babies can get away with almost anything when they act so freaking cute... :o)

when it rains....

When things go wrong...they seem to go very, very wrong. Yesterday I decided it was time to start Ava on some formula, since there's no way I'll have time to pump enough when I go back to work to keep her entirely on breast milk. I combined one ounce of formula with three ounces of milk, and figured that would be good enough to start....she took 2.5 ounces of the mixture, which is about how much milk she would take at one time when we first started giving her bottles and she wasn't too sure about them (she'll take four ounces of milk from a bottle now). So that was at 6pm and everything was fine until 8pm when I got in the shower: Craig came into the bathroom to say that Ava spit up on her clothes and he was changing her. Okay. Five minutes later he comes in to tell me that she has full-on thrown up twice, so hard that she turned red....luckily he made it to the sink with her and that's where she threw up. Before I got out of the shower she threw up again, all over herself. After I got out, she did it again and this time it was a yellow color (stomach acid?)...that happened one more time and then she was done. I am so grateful Craig was home...I do not know what I would have done had I been by myself...probably freaked out really bad. I assume it was the formula since I gave her just milk when she was hungry again after the barfing episode, but what the heck? Why wouldn't she have thrown up immediately after eating if it didn't agree with her? And I don't understand the reaction, I expected a bad diaper and maybe some fussiness, not crazy throwing up. ANYHOW after she was done and rested a little while and was ready to eat again, I sat down to nurse her and the power went out. Just like that. No storms here or nothing....just out. Luckily we had the fireplace on but oh. my. goodness. It stayed out about an hour before going on-off-on-off-on-off and finally staying on again. Thankfully there were no throwing up episodes in the dark!

So, that's about it...guess I should call the doctor today to see what we should do about the formula situation. Ava also boycotted all naps yesterday (wouldn't even fall asleep in my arms on the couch, which I use as a last resort and has ALWAYS worked!) so hopefully today is better.

Easter pics

It's not even 7am but I've already been up with Ava and had to pump as well, so why not? We didn't do anything for Easter, unfortunately...it was in the 30s outside when Ava woke up in the morning--I was exhausted, she was fussy, so after her feeding we all just crashed in our bed. And we had corned beef and potatoes for dinner, more traditionally served on St. Patrick's Day but I was tired and it was easy, so that's what happened. :o) In other completely unrelated news, I've noticed lately that I am pretty much the only person I know who's given birth recently and had a big baby and a long labor/difficult delivery. Seriously...what is UP with that?! I know one person who had a baby a year before me (almost to the day....I was hoping Ava would be born on her birthday but she was a day too soon!) who had a 9+ lb. baby and was pushing forever before the doctors finally did a c-section, but that's it. And my kid is outweighing these other newborns by a good 1.5-2 lbs. It's just so weird! Why all these tiny babies? Are they tiny, or is that just normal and I'm a freak? Why such a huge one from me? Craig and I are not particularly large people, but I'm beginning to think one of us may have sumo wrestler ancestors or something!

Anyhow, here's the pictures. My mom sent a cute Easter outfit for Ava so I snapped off a few pictures quickly before I had to throw a sweater on her because it was so cold. UGH. Raleigh is really fighting off spring this year...we get a few "teaser" days in the 60s and 70s and then back to the 50s, dropping into the 30s at night. (I know you Illinois people are laughing at me with all of your snow! But, I'm laughing at you too so we're even... ;o)

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my other "hero"....

...is MJ. Why? Because she suggested last week that I fasten hanging toys to the handle of Ava's carrier/car seat so that she has something to entertain her while we're out. The obvious solutions to her fussiness elude me, apparently. ANYHOW, now when we go out I just swipe a few toys from the Baby Einstein thing, hang them on the car seat, and Ava either stares at them until she dozes off or she looks at them and smiles like it's the most awesome thing she's ever seen. Babies can be a challenge, but sometimes they're so easy to please it's almost funny.

Yesterday we went out and looked at houses. We live in a nice house on nice land and really like the majority of our neighbors, but while we've taken care of our property, many other people have not. There's nothing more depressing than walking around our subdivision and realizing that about half of the people take absolutely no pride in their property: weedy, patchy lawns and cars parked on the grass. I know not everyone can afford an irrigation system (we installed one last year and it got our lawn into good shape) and I know we're in a bad drought right now so nobody's lawn is going to look that great, but you can at least keep it mowed and edged. And don't even get me started on the parking of cars on lawns...we even have an unused portion of land on our cul-de-sac that some people feel is an appropriate place to put their cars. It looks like a trailer park, for heaven's sake!!! So, because of these things and a couple of other situations we are not comfortable with, we are in the very early stages of looking elsewhere. We'll have to spend more than we'd like, but at least we can get something in a neighborhood where people take care of their things, and it will be more of an investment. We'll see...