Nothing major

No major accidents. This week has been pretty calm. whew.

In other news,

Well, Charlotte we can say has offically stopped breastfeeding. I think the last time was just around New Years Day. Right before this in November she went through a period where she cried and screamed and she was constantly clinging to me. She fed about sixteen times a day. I was at my wits end. I swore she'd never want to stop and I got a little depressed to be perfectly honest, really depressed. I think they get clingy when they sense it's the end (even if it's them who decides to stop). But now suddenly she's stopped asking and I've stopped offering. We're both sort of okay with that. It's always sad to let go but a lot of it's hormonal. I'm really pleased with getting so far when the beginning was so AWFUL, two years and two months! Go "low supply" me (and take that Miss Mexico Doctor who told me I had no milk!)

I've been really lazy with art journaling but I just haven't had time to draw at night and we don't have a light in the bedroom (don't ask). I've been getting back into photography lately. I just did a photo session for a pregnant friend and she loved it so much that we did a second session with her and the kids. I had a million ideas so it was really fun for me. The photos I did of her were very arty and avant garde. The kids ones were a bit more fun, laughing and poking fun of their mom. It was really challenging working with all that -- big belly mama, bad lighting and two kids. The pictures came out good though and she's shown them to everyone. I wish I could share them here but they're so personal. Anyway, now I have two or three people who've asked me to do sessions with their kids. I'm really excited because I love these kind of projects and my kids are bored with all my photo sessions. Fresh blood! Yay!

We hired our neighbor. Remember I said a while back "clearly one doesn't hire the neighbor" ? Well it was stupid to say that because he's the nicest person I've ever met and I think from what I've seen he's an amazing craftsman. I was just worried because we've had such horrible luck with workmen and you know if he's a neighbor it's kind of sticky. Hopefully he's our good luck charm.

Little S's room is almost finished and we're getting him some new furniture. I've found him an awesome mid century teak bed and I'm redoing his 1950's nightstand in the same tone. It's a little stylish for a kid's bedroom but I like it. I want to paint his accent wall in black (chalkboard paint!) but Seb is my roadblock, "you can't paint a kid's room BLACK!" He has to concede. It's going to look great and anyway it's only one wall.

Before I forget I have to share a link to a new favorite blog, with lots of fabulous ideas for mid century modern fans. I'm slowly becoming a huge fan of this style and it's pretty easy to collect nice pieces thrifting which is what I love to do.

la petite gourmande

She's 13 months this December so I thought I'd do a little breastfeeding update. Charlotte is still on the boob full time can you believe it!? Well I guess it isn't surprising that she's still on so much as that she's on full time. And it doesn't look like she's going to give up any of it any time soon. I tried to ease her into a morning bottle, well ease at first but then afterwards I really started pushing it. But there's no having it. She has such a little temper (Scorpio baby) that the bottles fly and the arms flail and she arches her back and screams bloody murder every time. You almost have to duck to not get hurt.

I'd really like to replace the morning feed. It's so hectic in the morning that I can't get her fed and get Little S and me ready and out the door without being late. I usually try to get her satisfied until I get back from the school run with a petit suisse (yogurt) and a compote but she sometimes throws such a fit that I have no choice but to calm her by giving her a little feed. I don't mind the evening feed and the goûter feed but this morning feed is really tough and there's the babysitter issue. I'd love to get out for a night.

I try to not offer so much on demand unless she's upset or teething. I've also noticed when we're in a new environment she wants to feed too and this is really uncomfortable because now that she's a big girl I have the "you're feeding a child over one" stare. It often comes with comment too, just of the curious kind, "how old is that child?" or "she isn't weened yet?" I'm a discreet feeder, so much so that people often don't notice that she's even feeding but when they do they tend to make comments. I know it's frowned upon to feed past six months in almost all western cultures and especially in public so I've pretty much expected it and I got these comments with Little S too. He was fed until 15 months.

I'm very blasé about it. It's my daughter and I love her and I'm uncomfortable when she isn't happy so it really doesn't bother me. True I'd prefer to eat my lunch in peace but if she asks I can't really say no. And trust me the people you won't be very happy if I say no. You have to see her temper to see what I mean!

I don't know how long this will go on. She's more attached to the boob than Little S ever was. He's a bit jealous lately which is funny. I think he sees her as ready for bottles too and so sometimes when she's feeding he tries to mess with her ears or bug her or climb on my lap. A few times he's climbed on my lap lately and snuggled his head into my shirt and dozed off a little, and every once in a while he'll make a funny suckling noise like he's doing a pretend feed. It's funny how they don't forget.

I guess I shouldn't rush it. And I am really happy that it's lasted this long. I never thought I'd make it past six months with either one. Go me!

Smiley girl

She started crawling a few short weeks ago, which is always a funny thing because you get so used to plopping baby down somewhere and then suddenly they become mobile and you turn around and there they are. It's a funny feeling.

Our smiley girl turns eleven months old in four days, nearly the big one year! She sleeps on her own now and eats well,...very well in fact. She loves food and I can't imagine that there will ever be a time when she will become a picky eater. I can't seem to get her to accept a bottle and this has been difficult because we stopped two of the breastfeeding sessions--the morning one and the four o'clock one. The morning session just became too hectic with getting Little S to school, driving Seb to work and preparing myself. I can't give her bottles so instead she eats yogurts to replace these feeds. Well petit suisse which in France is a sort of thick creamy unsweetend yogurt (40 percent fat!) and what the pediatrician recommends for babies as a bottle replacement at snack time. I still breastfeed her at night and we do a few short session before she goes down for naps. I hope we can continue this until age two with her eventually taking a bottle in the morning.

There is another backdated post here if you'd like to read it.

Perturbation

Okay so I did start writing in my baby blog again even though I said it was on a back burner. I had a wonky doctor visit with Charlotte last night and I´m a bit stressed about the breastfeeding. If you have some input please go and comment because I´m worried about my supply and I don´t know a sole person who breastfeeds here so yes I feel a little lost.

While we´re on the subject of blogs, I´m also getting sort of annoyed with the family blog. Lately the in-laws are all about the correcting the French and not so much about making nice, congenial comments on the posts. An example from my recent post about the new car (same post I did here yesterday, just copied over):

sil wrote a comment:

¨"Alors tu étais complètement paniquée dans les intersections sans panneaux de signalisation."

and then fil wrote a comment not long afterwards:

"Je vois que vous avez une belle voiture, que tu apprecies la conduite sauf au Mexique avec ses intersections sans panneaux"*

I had written "sans signes," rather than "panneaux" or rather Babelfish wrote that and I didn´t catch it because like I said before I let Babelfish do most of the translating for me and I correct the results. They know that I know that word, come on. Anyway, now nearly every single time they write a comment it´s to correct an error and I´m ready to send them back to the dictionary by just writing in English.

I´m annoyed today...sorry.

*fil is so stiff and formal in his comments it´s actually humorous. He really has no idea what to say !

Release from captivity . . . umm kind of

Life has really changed in this house. These days baby S is on bottled milk 75 percent of the time. We still do a coveted full morning feed and a very small token bedtime feed, but the rest of his milk comes straight from the fridge.

It was such a mix of emotions giving that first bottle. He'd thrown about dozen across the room before he took the first one, so I was happy to see him finally accept it. Part of my heart melted though. Here was the beginning of independence. It felt somewhat akin to releasing that baby seal back into the wild after you know, months and months of nurturing. I mean does he know how tough this place really is? Is this little guy ready to see that not everyone will come everytime he calls for help or reassurance? Okay so maybe I'm a wee bit dramatic, but it was the first time I've really felt the letting go emotion and 'ouch' it hurts. Seeing him with that bottle was realizing that month after month from here on out he will do things and experience life with me merely on the sidelines. He is never going to count on me as much as he has this first year.

Swallow. (oversized lump in throat)

In a week we visit the RE* for our first appointment towards our second IVF. I was supposed to have stopped breastfeeding long ago and I'm sure that we'll have a little explaining to do with all this prolactin charging through my blood, but I just couldn't bring myself to stop. I just didn't feel that we were ready before now and lets face it neither did baby S. The RE will probably sigh and say "no wonder you people can't get pregnant again!" and look at us like we're crazy fools. But everyone in this family is happy with the end of this nurturing story, even if it put us a little behind schedule in the reproduction race.

(RE=Reproductive Endocrinologist)

Summer spandex

So now it's six months breastfeeding. I made such a hoopla about the five month mark that six months has not been such a big deal. I feel pretty much the same about making the goal. Summer is coming and I have this sly little voice telling me that all of my little tank tops will be much more comfortable and flattering than those moo-moo style, billowing, dead-head smocks (yes...smocks you heard it) that I've been forced to wear.

I have a very selfish desire to just buy some "Enfamil" and ceremoniously hand Seb a bottle to feed little S with. The trouble is he probably wouldn't do it more than once. Then I'd be stuck washing up all those little plastic bottles and rubber nipples every day. And then I won't have the "instant calming devices" on hand...err well CHEST actually, for when I fly back home to Florida to visit my family.

How selfish is THAT? Go on, chastise me but if you'd been living in cavelike conditions for six months you'd feel a need to let loose a little too.

I suppose I'll have to put my dreams of spaghetti straps on hold for a few more months.

Five months breastfeeding

It's a confusing world in the land of motherhood. Breastfeeding in particular.

First no one said much of anything beyond that brief afternoon in the maternity class conducted with a life sized doll. And the doll did not squirm! I vaguely remember reading something like ". . . the baby, lying on my pelvis & covered with vernex, crawled up & latched himself to my swollen breast" So, I did this but he didn't latch on. And, as I discover later, he had practically eaten my nipples. This hurts an awful lot.

Fast forward two days later please.

I am lounging around in my hospital room, topless & slathered in Lansinoh. Me, shy, demure, discreet me, I am not the least bit shy when four French med students enter with clipboards & questions. I am pumping dammit and they are interrupting. Why am I pumping? To get the milk to come in! Where is it? It should be here by now *furrowed brow*. Quick take some fenugreek! Drink more water! Create less stress! It's a losing battle.

I end up at home, leaving the hospital with 6 bottles of formula and partially working breasts. I realize that I've never used formula and my baby may reject that as much as he seems to reject my breasts. At home, feedings which should seem less stressful multiply to the breaking point due to the number of visitors who have descended upon us like hungry vultures. They are everywhere. They come bearing cute gifts so we'll open the door. They want to see the baby now before he grows another minute older! They want to see the baby that won't eat. They all express immediate & overwhelming concern: "he looks hungry", "maybe he's hungry," "do-ya think he's hungry?" and the famous..."have you tried feeding him?" I trudge upstairs again, but due to the number and noise of the well-meaning visiting vultures there is no milk let-down. Sure the milk is there but the milk won't come. My baby is a screaming, squirming, reptile in my slippery new mom hands. I yell downstairs to my own mother, who is busy serving snacks and politely conversing, "mom can you please come here?" I discreetly ask her for a hot towel and she trudges back upstairs with a dripping microwaved washcloth. "What's going on?" say the well meanin visiting vultures. "I thought he was hungry, why is she giving him a bath?" The washcloth helps. The milk lets down. The baby sucks. I've made it safely through another feeding.

Here I'm going to go lurk on a breastfeeding web board I frequent & lift some random comments. I'll be right back:

. . . On one side it feels like a rug burn and on the other side it feels like pins. His latch on one side is better on one side than the other but I can't seem to get him to change it.

. . . he constantly pulls and yanks on the boob when trying to poop while nursing

. . . my breasts are SO engorged after only 3 hours. They are hard as a rock and lumpy and VERY painful!

. . . She was nursing fine and several times a day but since Saturday she'll only nurse for about 10 minutes, cries and then seems finished. Any ideas?

See, this stuff is VERY difficult. No one tells you any of this. After all, there really is no way to explain it. And maybe you wouldn't listen anyway. Once we were in the throes of breastfeeding we just carried on. I entertained the idea of stopping at least five times a day. I cried tears of frustration. I hated every second of the whole thing. But, we carried on through hour long nursing sessions one following right on top of the other, we made it through screaming kick fests, colic to reflux, grabbing, chewing & biting. And we have prevailed making it to to the "easy phase." Ten minute nursing sessions just four times a day. The joy of being able to bring comfort in an instant anywhere, anytime. The bond so strong it's scary to think of stopping one day.

So join me in a toast & lift your glasses to five months of breastfeeding my little doll.