Monday, June 22, 2009

First goal met

TMI -
I just had to save here that I met my first goal for pumping, 120z.day, last Friday, had a weird day Saturday, but still made 12 both yesterday and today. Let's hope this keeps up :)

Also... lot's of rearranging downstairs, and preparing to get a flatscreen HD tv and PS3. Partially for safety issues, mostly for fun :) I feel guilty spending money on something fun (no, seriously I do) but hey, we should treat ourselves now and again right?

And finally getting some stuff out of the house, like an aquarium and strollers and such. It's a big house but it's crowded with junk!

Pax has been great with his new sleep schedule. We read him down for both nap and at night. He LOVES the Narnia books and I'm really enjoying them. Tomorrow I get to start "The Horse and His Boy"!!!! It'll be my third to read to him, and I actually remember this one a bit. I so loved it!

Feeling really optimistic about the adoption lately. Maybe it's the milk thing. Maybe it's all the babies around. Maybe it's Paxton hitting a bunch of new milestones lately and really, truly turning from a "baby" into a kid. We have the most fun conversations now!!!

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Baaaad mommy!

K, not truly bad, just kinda let Paxton eat dinner in front of a semi-violent video game then go to bed like an hour late when he already went to bed late last night. That's totally gonna come back to haunt me!

In TMI pumping news, the past few days have been awful. I was up to meeting my quota of 10oz a day and then suddenly... blockage on the left! Blockage on the right! Sudden drop in supply! Pain and tenderness at all times! OMG Wow!

So I worked at it, and pumped extra to make my quota since I know the milk is IN there, it just doesn't want to come out. I'm about .5 oz away for today. Yesterday was the worse, seems to be improving now and the right one only hurts a tiny bit (left one doesn't hurt at all). Hopefully I'll be back to normal tomorrow. It's such a pain in the butt that I really don't need the added stress of a lowered supply or incredible pain from non-boob chest to tip. Ugh.

Nothing else really going on here. Our adoption agency let us know how many potential situations they have in the pipeline right this moment, and that includes 3 AA situations in the upcoming few months. There are 6 families waiting for an AA infant so we'll see, but they also receive last minute phone calls from hospitals and those situations are obviously not listed on what they sent out as they don't know about them. I'm just trying to be calm right now... honestly, it's just good to know that there is actually movement. Our agency works with expectant parents until they're 6-8 weeks from giving birth, sometimes even until after they've given birth, even if they've known about them and been signed with them since the first month. So to us it looks like nothing is moving, nothing is going forward, we're just drifting and hoping and waiting, and then suddenly a situation pops up out of nowhere. On their side they're dealing with a dozen situations at least and trying to coordinate everything, including medicaid, legals, etc.

Time to go, Nik's here!

Monday, June 8, 2009

Another quick postlet

-Went to the 10th Anniversary for A Child's Hope on saturday. It was fun seeing everyone (and watching Pax get a nice sugar high!). Got to meet lots of people, lots of babies, lots of wonderful families to root and cheer for!
-Went to a multi-person birthday party on Sunday for Nik, his uncle Brad, and myself as we're all June birthdays. Also a sort of going away party for Janet who'll likely head back to England sometime this month. Hopefully she'll get skype or something in order to stay in contact with Paxton. He adores his Gran, it would stink for him if she suddenly dissappeared from his life.
-On Friday we dropped P-Man off at the kid's museum for the first friday kids came. He loved it! That means we can go back next month too. First Friday Downtown has lots of open art galleries, live music and discounts at different shops and eateries.
-Pax is sleeping better and in a better mood. The big changes are that we're working on being calmer, we started reading older books to him to put him to sleep, and on the advice of another parent of a child adopted as a toddler, we turned the tv back on. Eh, so long as it's not all the time and it's making him happy...
-TMI section: I can make 1.5 oz/session easily and have made over 2oz/session several times now. So that's my next goal I think, 2oz/session. Also have been getting a nasty blockage on my far right but have got it out twice, once with hot compress, once with massage. I hope it won't come back!
-Playing and enjoying The Sims 3.
-Enjoying choir, though I messed up horribly on Sunday... right in front of the microphone!
-Despite all the mud, I'm enjoying fewer trees. The yard feels safer and looks bigger. I pray those old souls become used for something good, though. I don't exactly like cutting down tall, old trees that have lived far longer than I. I just want to keep my young safe, y'know?
-We have pumpkin flowers! Which means I ought to weed the garden...
-Pax has sat still and calm for FOUR storytimes in a row! Can it be? Has he finally calmed down enough to handle it? Is he just old enough? Have we worked with him enough?

Almost time to wake up my boy. I'm almost done writing in his 1st year with us book (er, should've been done six months ago...). I think it's about time to start a "2009" book, with a small book for "holidays 2008," between his birthday and new years (about 6 weeks). Once the new one comes home I'm sure we'll have tons of pics together and I'd rather do actual years than time since first child arrived home.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

And yet again...

Dearest son,

I love you. I love you more than the air I breath, the water I drink, the sun that lights me. I love you so much it hurts and so much that hearing a song that makes me think of you will often bring me to tears, even if you're in the backseat screaming at me to put in N'Sync's "Bye Bye Bye." I love you when you hug me and when you hit me. I love you when you're screaming and when you're snoring and when you're saying "please" and "thank you." I love you even when you hurt me intentionally. I love you.

So please understand how hard it is to punish you, to limit you, to get angry with you. Please understand that when I do lose my temper with you it absolutely kills me inside. Please understand that when I raise my voice above appropriate levels, even if we spend the rest of the day in sheer and utter bliss I am still berating myself and always will. Please understand that it hurts me to hurt you, it hurts me to see your angry face turn into one of shock or fear or sorrow. Please understand that I only raise my voice or hold your fists or make you sit out because I want what's best for you. You need to learn how to behave, you need to calm down and learn to enjoy life with other people there, and you need to learn that you actually can harm others.

I would say more. But you appear to be up from nap.

Dang.

Love, mom

Monday, June 1, 2009

Just a quick post

Seriously, I'm going to try to make this quick, and thus, bullet points! Or, um, dashy points or whatever...

-TMI: Up to 1.5 oz a session! That's about 10 oz a day! My first goal is 12 oz a day so hopefully I'll reach that soon. I'd like to be making double that though, so we'll see.
-Starting to get frustrated with the domestic adoption process. Just want to see some movement like NOW! It was so much easier being on a waitlist with a timeframe, knowing who was next and who wasn't. I really thought we'd be matched and placed by now but I guess that wasn't the plan. And Pax probably needed a few more months of being an only anyway. But now it's starting to feel less like we're waiting for the next chapter of our family and more like we're actually lacking someone, a real person, our next family member. Like we actually miss them. Even Paxton asks where BB is and when he/she will be coming home. I feel guilty about that :(
-Paxton requires force to go to sleep. And perseverance. And determination. And patience. Let's pray he gets over that by the time BB is here because man, you ain't sleeping once a baby is here if this is what it takes...
-Nik has been sick lately, which really, really sucks for all of us.
-We now have no more tall pines (did I blog about this already?) and a huge muddy yard.
-I lost weight and am pleased. Am now about 40lbs lighter than I was at college graduation, but still 35 lbs higher than I was upon entering college. If my weight gain during college shocks you, please take into consideration that I graduated in 3 years, which I guess makes it more shocking. There are just so many good restaurants in Chapel Hill! I almost wish I knew how much weight I'd gained during the wait for Paxton. I really ballooned up and as soon as we had him in our arms we both started to lose weight. Literally. We came back from Ethiopia and people were shocked. Now I wish I knew how much dropped from my frame in the past 18 months without even trying.
-Am watching a couple of dramas on MySoju.com. Recently finished up a Japanese Dorama, now seeing a Korean one with Renata and a Taiwanese one with Nik. Perhaps I'll watch a Hong Kong one next. I hear Nicholas Tse is in a few and he is soooooo pretty!
-I've been thinking about putting together a children's book. I have several ideas but I was thinking about making one about the wait for a sibling, something simple and easy to understand, and also easy to expound upon. I figure I could word it both simply and carefully such that it could be used for the wait to adopt, wait due to infertility, or even just a normal wait to conceive and birth. I'm thinking of using rabbits and having "Benny Bunny" be the main character, though I suppose I should look that up and make sure there aren't a million "Benny Bunny" books out there! Now let's see how long it takes before I give this up as well :)