A Day in the Life: Work Day

I have never done a post like this but I think it is something I may want to look back on one day! So here we go! I work part time (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday) and this is how our days go right now.
 I wake up at 7:30, usually earlier because Abram is my little early riser. Depending on when he last ate and what time we get up depends on what we do. Usually I feed him and set him down to play on his own and clean up a bit, if he woke up 5:30-6:30. He seems to really love this time with just us and me playing with him. Second kid syndrome at it's finest, ha! I eat breakfast and relax from 7:30-8:00 and then at 8 I start to get ready. Feed Abram at 8:30, this is usually when Lexi is waking up. It varies by how loud we were getting ready. After feeding A man I get Lexi breakfast and she watches tv while I get ready. Her sitter, Miss S., arrives at 9 to help watch the kids while I finish getting ready. I pack my bags- lunch, snacks, pump and dress the kid then head out the door at 9:15.

I work from 10-6, while at work I pump twice for Abram. I get home and relieve Miss S around 6:25ish. Then the race is on, ha! Dinner, getting ready for the next day, bathing and playing with the kids, relaxing, and attempting to get into bed for 10, at the latest. We bath Lexi, let her play for a bit while we watch tv, read books, then off to bed she goes. She is officially sleeping in her big girl bed- huge win for us! Yay Lexi. She typically sleeps all night long- she wakes about 1-3 times looking for her 'friends' but goes right back to sleep.

Abram goes down about 7-8 and then he wakes up around 9 and eats, gets changed for bed, and down for the night until about 1-3, then up for the day anywhere from 5:30-7:30. Ryan and I get our 'us' time in  once the children are in bed. This is new for us, and such a fun thing to look forward to! We usually watch Dexter and relax and cuddle. Then we go to sleep and start over again the next day.

Bachelor: Juan Pablo

Wow!!!! That is my first reaction to this season. Let me start off by saying that this was hands down the worst Bachelor season, and Juan Pablo was the worst bachelor. All season long I have literally wanted to punch him in the face and last night? I wish I could have reached him. He is a joke. Completely and ridiculously a jerk. You know it is bad news bears when Chris Harrison (whom I adore!!) is speechless. About three or four episodes in and I was done watching it. I, of course, kept watching it because I started and couldn't just stop but I missed a few episodes. I went ahead and read the spoilers because I was seriously over the season!!

Then last night? Blew my mind. The lack of respect he had for all the women was appalling! Seriously, what  a jerk. I loved how Clare blew up on him and told him how she felt- girl deserved that! And how he reacted afterwards? Totally immature. Just because you have a child does not make you mature, sorry JP. I can not believe that Nikki accepted the rose! I understand that she doesn't want to force things but accepting that rose after all they went through because he 'really like you. a lot.'? Are you serious? Have some self respect, girl!

After the final rose was totally awkward. I don't know how many more times Chris Harrison could have revised his questions just for JP to talk in circles and never answer the question. JP was just downright rude to everyone. It was pitiful! All season long I have definitely gotten the feeling that Harrison wasn't a huge fan of JP but last night it was definitely more evident. This morning I caught a clip of Harrison on GMA and he was explaining that JP fought them basically the whole time on everything. The thing that really got me last night was he kept saying he wants it to be his 'private' life. YOU went on tv in front of millions of people to find love- there is absolutely nothing private about it. That is what you signed up for and fully agreed to. For you to act as you are is completely ridiculous. I sure hope the next season of the Bachelorette is better than this one, because it was definitely a joke. JP definitely is just a player and wasn't there for the right reasons at all. The fact that his family was concerned raised huge red flags right off the bat. Good luck to Nikki- girl you are going to need it! And when y'all break up? I am interested to see your reaction to the show. You know, once you take off those rose colored glasses.

I just love me some Sean and Catherine. Seriously, how cute are they? That is a true love story and a marriage! I think everyone loves them. And I loved both of their reactions- especially Sean's because he has been in the same situation and JP. The difference is Sean is a real man! What were your thoughts on the season and the final episode?

Boosting your milk supply

With all of my struggles with my supply, it finally came to a head last week and I was desperate! The weather was really nasty but I loaded up the kids anyway and headed to GNC. I grabbed brewer's yeast and Mother's Milk Tea. Then I headed to walmart to grab the few ingredients I needed. Once I got home we got to baking! We made lactation peanut butter oat balls and blueberry cheesecake lactation cookies! The recipes are Lactation peanut butter oat balls Blueberry Cheesecake Lactation Cookies. The oat balls I was very nervous about but was pleasantly shocked! They were delicious!!! I absolutely loved them. The cookies though? Awful. I ended up giving the dough to Maverick and putting the cookies in compost. I am trying a different cookie recipe today- either an oatmeal raisin or a chocolate chip one so I will let you know how that one turns out. I have also been taking fenugreek when I can remember- which is basically only Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday when I am at work. The Mother's milk tea I was very nervous about because so many people hate it. But it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. I don't like hot tea so I added honey, sugar, and milk with ice cubes. I could barely tolerate it so I talked to some of my friends about their experiences. One friend gave me the idea to mix it with another tea, which is what I ended up doing. Lipton makes blackberry vanilla tea and it is very yummy! I boiled water, added 2 mother's milk tea bags, 1 blackberry vanilla, and 1 cup of sugar in 2 liters of water and chilled it. Once it was cooled it was actually pretty yummy! Ryan accidentally threw it away though because he tasted it and thought it was just regular tea that went sour, ha! It really wasn't terrible though. I find it tastes like licorice and the after taste is the worst part of it. No harm in trying it. The biggest thing that helped me though was upping my calories and water intake. That is the easiest and has made such a significant difference. Pumping is a completely different story. I have accepted that I am just not a milk expresser this time around. I hope this has helped anyone out there trying to boost their supply! Keep it up mama and if all else fails, at least you tried all you could!

Our Breastfeeding Journey

I am actually pretty nervous to even put this out there because this can be such a controversial topic. But I am going to because if this helps or encourages even one person, it is totally worth it. When Lexi was born breastfeeding didn't work out for us so I ended up exclusively pumping. I quit that around 6-8 weeks because it was just so exhausting and I couldn't handle it anymore. I was a cow though, so I had about 300 ounces in our freezer. We had to go as far as buying a deep freezer- just for breastmilk! It was honestly pretty insane. When I stopped we started supplementing 1/2 formula and 1/2 breastmilk and it stayed like that until she went onto whole milk at a year.
With Abram I was much  more determined to breastfeed. There were many reasons for this and I wish I would have been determined with Lexi. Abram took right to nursing like it was his job and for him? The rest was history. He was pretty jaundiced in the beginning so we had to supplement but I would always nurse him and then give him a formula bottle. I was pumping like crazy! This is when I built up my freezer stash. In those first 2-3 weeks I pumped and stored 150 ounces. Talk about a cow, ha! I am so glad my milk was awesome at that point because with working now, it has been getting used a good bit.
I finally stopped pumping so much around 2 months (I was pumping everyday morning and night between his feedings because I was scared to lose my supply.) It became too much for me to pump and it was so discouraging because I was pumping consistently and only getting 1/2 oz to 2 oz! That was terrible. This is when I began to doubt myself. I feel like I was constantly wondering 'Is he getting enough?' or 'Is he satisfied and gaining weight?'. To this day, this is still a huge area that I struggle in. Ashley has been my lifesaver with nursing. She is always there to support me and answer questions, reassure and uplift me! She has gone as far as to say that making it this far is great, so if it doesn't work out, that is okay. Thank you so much Ashley!! I would have been so lost without you. I have stuck with it though and at 4.5 months old Abram is still mostly breastfed.

Around 3 months old Abram dropped off the weight chart. I was so discouraged! I felt like a failure at life and was heartbroken. This is when we switched doctors because the doctor we were seeing was a joke (that is a whole other story!). The old doctor wanted me to start supplementing at this point. I switched doctors because I wanted a second opinion. The second doctor that we saw weighed him and he had fallen off the weight chart after his 2 month check up. Come to find out it was a chronic double ear infection that the old doctor missed!! I was so mad! Since then he is gaining pretty well and I definitely can't complain. It made me feel so much better that he gained SIX OUNCES in that one week after his ear infection cleared. The doctor agreed that he is just a small baby- he is meeting his milestones, happy, he has a little bit of chunk on him, and all together doing well.

Since I am working part time now, I just can't keep up with his demand. We have recently been doing half formula and half breast milk, just to stretch the breast milk further. Plus, he is officially a boobie baby and doesn't' like formula, ha! The doctor wanted to add in some formula as well, just to help boost him up a bit. He has a few sickness issues we are dealing with and it makes him burn extra calories so it should help him just to chunk up a bit. He was 11 lbs 4 oz a week ago, in case you were wondering.

Next post? How to boost your milk supply! Or at least what has worked for me. I am still trying to find the trick to pump more milk but I think the deal is my body isn't responding to my pump- which is a huge bummer.