Dread

I am upstairs. AB is downstairs with MIL. She is trying to put him to sleep. He is screaming -- the kind of scream where he's actually starting to go hoarse.

My heart is pounding, my breasts are tingling, and I just want to go down there and make everything right.

S doesn't want me to. This is supposed to be a dry run for tomorrow night, when the in-laws are keeping the boys so S & I can have an early anniversary date in the city.

I could not bear the thought of leaving the kids here with the in-laws while we were over an hour away, so we are getting two hotel rooms close to the restaurant where we have reservations. I think it's a 10-minute cab ride from the hotel to the restaurant. Much better, if we need to get back quickly, than a 1+ hour drive home.

But I am terrified. MIL seems even more inept with AB than she was with KB. I cannot figure out why. He is not difficult to put to sleep, although his mood does turn on a dime. He absolutely has to be soothed to sleep within 2 hours of waking up, or he screams bloody murder. MIL does not understand that and doesn't respect it.

A couple of nights ago, she completely ignored AB's sleepy signs (we had stepped out to pick up KB, to talk to his teacher, and to buy him some shoes). I had told her we should be back well before he needed to eat again, but at her insistence, I left a bottle just in case. Of course, when we walked in, she was giving him a bottle. She said he had started crying and she couldn't get him to stop. One glance at the clock said he was sleepy, not hungry.

I have horrible visions of her gorging him with 12 ounces of breastmilk tomorrow night while we are at dinner. I know she will keep him awake past his 2-hour window, and he will scream, and she will get all flustered that she can't put him to sleep, and she'll give him another bottle. Then she'll call me at the restaurant and tell me she's out of breastmilk and we need to come back.

Why did I ever let myself get talked into this date? My stomach is in knots just thinking about it.

Nursing is a full-time job!

I love that breastfeeding AB is going well. I do. I love that he is filling out and actually getting rolls on his thighs.

Sometimes as I watch him nursing, I hear him gulping and swallowing and marvel that I am making ACTUAL MILK! I'm feeding him! Me!

Other times I wonder who is sneaking into our house in the middle of the night and feeding this child. It boggles my mind that I am producing 100% of his nourishment.

Nursing sessions are still lasting forever. I know I should not complain. At least AB feeds about every 3 hours, not every 2 hours. And the last two nights have been lovely, with some 5+ hour stretches of sleep.

But I do feel that I am becoming one with the couch. I feel as if there is a baby on my boob just about all the time.

Tonight I took KB out to dinner after I fed AB. I wanted to spend some time with my sweet angel boy, just the two of us. I knew our relationship would be different once we had a second baby, but I wasn't prepared for how much I would miss him.

The view from here

AB just fed for an hour and a half (including a lot of falling asleep at the breast). Now he's in the bouncy seat while I contemplate eating something for lunch.

KB is at preschool.

S's parents have disappeared again. This time, they have gone off with his cousin to do a week of sightseeing in Northern California. But not the redwood forest; they saw that in 2002 and Heaven forbid they see the same thing twice.

Remind me again why we spent $2800 to fly them here to "help us"?

S is upstairs taking a nap. He said he would be up at 12:45. It's 1:30.

I'm on my 5th load of laundry in two days.

I am not happy.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul

S's solution to decluttering the downstairs? Cram all the clutter into boxes and stack the boxes in the upstairs office.

Yes, the same upstairs office that we are supposed to be CLEARING to use for AB's room.

Sigh.

So the downstairs is starting to look decent. The upstairs is in shambles.

And he cut the lawn, weeded, and trimmed earlier today with his dad.

I don't know who these people are who are coming over tomorrow. I'm wondering if I need to put on my nicest dress and my priciest jewelry. They must be Indian nobility or something!!

Why can't he get this fired up about doing chores around the house on a regular basis? Why must it be to impress these particular friends of his parents?

I still don't get it.

2 months

2 month appointment today.

Weight: 10 lbs, 10 oz (25th percentile)
Length: 23 inches (50th percentile)
Head circumference: 39.5 cm (between 25th and 50th percentile)

The pediatrician was pleased at the (almost) 2 lb gain in a month. He asked me "So, when did your milk finally come in?" Huh? I told him the milk was always there, it was the baby who wasn't taking it all.

I felt very smug indeed when I told him that I stopped all the supplements of expressed milk immediately after AB's 1-month appointment.

He agreed that I'd done a very good job of turning things around.

Huzzah! And now I don't have to go back for 2 more months.

AB has been VERY irritable today after his (4) shots. I don't think he's slept more than a couple of 10-15 minute stretches since we got home. He's pretty much been hanging out on the boob.

I finally got him to sleep by swaddling him. Now I bet KB will wake him up when he and Daddy get home from swimming. Argh.

Same old story: no time

- S is on a job interview. I'm glad he's interviewing, but this is for another start-up, and for many reasons, I would rather he get a job at an established company.

- AB is in the bouncy seat but is starting to get fussy (he just ate, so I know he's not hungry).

- KB is at preschool; I'll go get him in a little bit

- We had way too many activities this past weekend. That always screws up KB's nap schedule and AB's eating. He doesn't seem to like feeding outside when it's hot.

- The in-laws have been gone since August 11th, but they return on Wednesday. They went to visit some other relatives in Chicago and Memphis. It has been SO NICE to just be a family of 4. I'm really not looking forward to having them back.

- S is on a tear to declutter and to clean the downstairs. His parents have invited over some of their friends who are visiting the Bay Area from Seattle. S desperately wants to make a good impression on his parents' friends because of how much that would please his parents. Huh?? I would like to devote an entire post to how I feel about this. I know it's a cultural difference but the whole situation is beyond my comprehension.

OK, AB won't give me any more time. Can you believe he will be 2 months old on Wednesday?!?!

The briefest of updates

Breastfeeding is going better. I think. AB weighed 9 lbs, 12 oz at group on Thursday. (After eating, he was up to a cool 10 lbs) Last week, he was 9 lbs, 4 oz at group. So 8 oz in 7 days. Not bad.

He doesn't seem to like the right side much, for some reason. He grunts, twists my nipple, pulls off frequently. I don't know if I'm just holding him badly or what. I usually do cradle hold first and then switch to the football hold to let him empty the breast as much as possible. He does much better on the left side. I'm trying *not* to favor that side because I don't want Righty to dry up from lack of use.

The biggest issue, I guess, is how frickin' long AB takes to feed. He's a sipper. He usually takes 45 minutes to an hour to finish both sides. He is not a one-boob man, oh no. He wants both boobs at every feeding. And he takes. for. ever. Sometimes he takes even longer than an hour.

I'm trying to hang in there. I keep hoping that as he gets bigger and stronger, he'll get more efficient. I just wish I knew when that might happen. Nursing is literally a full-time job, and it's very, very difficult on the days KB is home with me.

Luckily (or not), S is still looking for a job, so he's home with us right now. Oh, did I mention that he got laid off from his job?

Yeah, so there's that.

Have to run for now. AB is starting to fuss, and it's getting close to feeding time again.