Sunday, December 15, 2013

[[Five Months of Faith]]


Likes: Faith absolutely positively LOVES to jump. All day long she is a jumping bean! Since we started solids she likes everything we've given her, sweet potatoes, squash, peas, bananas, and apples! Starting to see her have preferences (tried to feed her peas, kept turning her head till she got some apples! Spoiled.) Still likes car rides! My favorite "like" that she has is her love of mama's singing =] Literally the second the words "hush little baby...." come out of my mouth, her eyes are heavy and all is right in her world! The trick to getting her to sleep is singing that song and bouncing her, not rocking... just bouncing. And she's out like a light! Lastly, she goes crazy over gnawing on an apple in one of those mesh pacifier looking things.


Dislikes: The moment we leave the room. As if we have walked out the door, got in the car, and drove off without her. She's starting to not like her swing as much, though I can't figure out if her hatred is for going down for a nap or the swing... maybe both... either way... her screams test my patience more than I ever thought they would!


Milestones: Big month! Started eating solids this month, really reaching for things and grabbing them, and she is starting to sit up on her own, with my hands 2 inches away from her of course, but she's not totally folded over like a taco... well, not the whole time at least.... just when she gets tired of it =] 

"You all like the smell of christmas trees... I like the taste!"

Don't want to forget: This is probably something a normal human would not wish to remember however our reaction was so priceless I wish someone was recording it! We were decorating our first real Christmas tree and Faith was just bouncing away in her chair and she just starting ripping em! Went to pick her up and there was s*** EVERYWHERE. Did one of those "hold the baby as far away from you as possible" holds and ran up the stairs to get her in the bath, her door was closed so Im yelling for Joel "JOEL HURRY GET THE DOOR!" he comes up gets the door and I get her shirt and pants off just covered in crap and then got to the REAL deal. The diaper. I have never in my life seen so much poop in a little tinnie tiny baby! Joel and I were just franticly trying to figure out our next move breaking down each step to each other "alright you get the bath going" "you  hold her Ill pull her pants off" "you get the washer going and wash the bouncer and these clothes" "you do the diaper I can't do this poop" << mind you those were not my words.... imagine my face when he said that haha! You had to be there, but it was hilarious... she was just content as ever =]


I love being this little girls mama!




"Im gonna eat your nose Mom!"



Schedule 
7-7:30am - Wake up and pump
8:00am - Faith wakes up, Bottle feed
11:00am - Bottle feed and Solids
2-2:30pm - Bottle feed
3:30pm - Pump
5:30-6pm - Bottle feed and Solids
8:30pm - Last bottle feed
10:30-11pm - Pump

Her schedule has finally let up a little! We are down to 5 feedings which is pretty nice I must say! Along with only 3 pumpings in a day, I am a happy camper! Its crazy, absolutely crazy to be able to go out and do something and not have this insane schedule to work through and only have like a half an hour to get somewhere and back... this little bit of freedom is life changing! Also, being that I am able to sleep through the night.... my goodness... no words. All that hard work keeping my supply going has totally paid off. Still pump about 48 oz which is still well over what she needs so soon I will be pumping twice a day and feeding her everything she needs still... WHAAAT?? I am finally at the point where I don't mind pumping at all, and so now I feel like, what do I have all this excess stored up for when I can just continue doing this??... Im losing calories and keeping the milk fresh! I will probably stop in a couple months and use the stored up stuff so she can get breastmilk till she is one when she switches to vitamin d milk =]

Throwback to Thanksgiving at the Beards!

[[Post Edit: If you do read this part... know that I talk rant about pumping so much because I am so proud of what I accomplished! And I can only hope to keep other mamas motivated to push through the hard work to get an insane supply!... also I may need to see this encouragement for baby #2 when that happens and Im at my wits end and want to quit =] ]]
This is what I have stored at Joels parents house... and this was only from a few weeks of being there... about 1300 oz there, and unfortunately the 350 oz or so here will go to waste along with all that other milk Ive pumped and dumped since we will be moving back to AZ in a month or so will go "bad" in about a month anyways =[ Id say Im a milk making machine and am VERY proud of my body... almost feel stupid for putting so much pressure on myself over it... but... I guess this is how I got to where I am, I put in some serious work! 



[[Seriously though... no wonder I dropped weight fast... Just in the estimated stored up milk I have, Ive burned 33,000 calories! If I take it another step and add up her daily intake of milk since she was born thats about 110,000 calories which is roughly 700 calories burned every day.... NOT including 2 months I had to pump and DUMP all my extra...! When I was making about 70-80 oz a day that was about 1500 calories. JUST BREAST FEEDING!]] If I could go back I would seriously just appreciate that I was burning all those calories just by sitting there for about 20 minutes instead of complaining about how much I hated it... Also would have let myself sleep through the night instead of setting my alarm to wake up in the middle of the night after those first 12 weeks when the supply is supposedly "established" I was just SO fearful of losing the supply and theres not a lot of information on exclusively pumping so I was winging it... Im now down to sitting here for about 10 minutes and getting 16 oz out... It is safe to say, I have been BLESSED. The only complaint I have now is that I don't fit in shirts like I used to... I miss having small tata's. My heart still goes out to all the women with big boobs, rough life! I take back the day I "wished for bigger boobs". And thank the heavens I never got a boob job.

Alright. This became a novel. Enough.

Merry Christmas to all!