OneMore and Forest - I'll be headed your way this weekend. I confirmed we will have wifi access. I'd love to get together with you mamas while we're there, even just for an hour or two.
Cristeen --- Its Passover weekend for those of us who don't follow the Hillel calendar...I'm sorry - I'll be miles away from Newport. I sent a PM, but just in case you dont get it, posting here too.
Forest - I clarified for OneMore, but for your sake. We'll be in town a week. My plans have changed because the friend I was driving with - the whole house is currently puking. So instead of heading up Monday morning in the car, we'll be headed up tomorrow night (Saturday) on the train. We'll arrive Sunday afternoon and leave Saturday afternoon.
Just today (9 months later, but who's counting?), I got a copy of the bill from Children's Hospital. I just about had a heart attack. Thankfully insurance covers most of it, because the bill was more than we paid for our house. By a lot.
I'm frantically packing, since I thought I had 2 more days than I actually do. Train ride by myself with 2 kids is gonna be interesting. Talk to you ladies when we get home.
Cristeen - I am afraid to ask how much you will have to be personally responsible for with the bill. I know my moms hospitalization was around $50k and I dont even know how much she would have been personally held for if not on state insurance. I was curious what D's bill was but we never received a copy...maybe just not 'yet'.
I feel for your friend. That flu is crappy. Feel fine one day, sick the next repeat 3x and then its gone leaving only dirty laundry as evidence it came. Watch yourselves, you guys may have the bug also!
FM - You got any plans Wednesday? We could all meet up and hit Ripleys or one of the other tourist traps. ;) If not maybe this winter, as Cristeen said.
Things here are going decent. I am not nursing D. as much and we are in the process of weaning. I know, I know. Crunchy mama fail, but the truth is I am getting majorly squicked out by nursing..I am not producing much milk and I just don't feel too bad about it. 10 1/2 months is still a victory so I'll be happy. I nurse every day 1 or 2 x for a couple minutes but thats it.
She seems fine with it. She loves food and water and juice. Not too big of a fan of the goats milk option.
Should I give her a tsp of coconut oil every day for fat?
Gearing up the house for Passover. Today is major cleaning day and I start the marinating of the lamb. I've been trying to eat more vegan style foods lately, so meat almost sounds delicious. almost..
OneMore- crunchy mama fail here, too. Seriously considering weaning (again!) and I'm not even pregnant. We nurse about 3x/day now and then a bunch at night and i keep thinking if we just WEANED maybe he would SLEEP and I'd feel a bit less like poking everyone's eyes out for the rest of the day. He seems mostly okay without nursing during the day too much, likes his food and has figured out a sippy cup. I know he's too young for it but I'm thinking by 12 months, once summer is in swing and we're outside a bit more (maybe?) it might be easier to just slowly drop feedings and reduce the night time feedings to nothing. I hope to be totally done by 18 months, so a 6 month gentle weaning I guess? We'll see how it goes, if i keep feeling skeeved out by nursing then I might move it ahead a bit.
I'm doing my first passover. I'm not Jewish but my parents decided they were messianic jews or some such when I was about 8 so I grew up with it (to some extent) and most years I've gone back to my parent's for passover celebrations. I'm having some friends over for dinner tomorrow night for our Seder service and I just realized today that I don't have any sort of copy of the Haggadah so I'm rapidly pulling together some crazy mish-mash thing today.
We have (almost) one tooth here! The first corner of the bottom tooth poked through yesterday. Might be related to some degree of crankiness and night-time wakings.
It's so good to hear I'm not the only one having a hard time with the bfing lately. I find myself hoping that he'll wean because if I have someone sucking on me for one more minute.... It's mostly just so hard when he's up so much at night. I feel like he's just sucking me drying all night long and I need some personal space big time! We are having lots of trouble with sleeping in general right now. I'm hoping it's because last week I was horribly sick with the flu and then we went on a trip to Connecticut this weekend which was super stressful right after being sick. We're trying to get back into our normal routines, but the house is a disaster and I'm still recovering energy wise. Plus, DH did not want us to go on the trip so soon after me being sick. So the whole time we were at odds with each other since I insisted on going and he didn't really want to be there. It was tough for everyone.
Elliott is spending a lot of time pulling himself up to standing. I feel like he just started crawling and now he's on to the next thing!
Okay, my quick minute is up!
MLog, I think the "up so much at night" thing is the real killer. I think bfing could be a beautiful thing if you nurse down at night, nurse when babe wakes up in the morning and then a few times during the day- but these marathon, seemingly every-10-minutes nursing sessions make me want to run screaming from the house if he touches me ONE MORE TIME.
Elliot spending time pulling himself up could be the sleep regression you're seeing. Often sleep goes to crap right before a big milestone.
I'm here - I just had my name changed. hehe
Grace - I suspected you were raised Messianic. Thats cool :)
We are not exactly messianic Jews. We're close. We do believe the Messiah will return soon. We keep the biblical holy days as best as we can, and eat clean (not exactly kosher though...). We don't read the talmud much outside of historical context, but we do read the Torah as commandments and study Hebrew both paleo and current. No christmas, easter, halloween and I'm sure you know the rest. We read the new testament and apocryphal books too.We fellowship with others...\\
I don't know what our label is, but some people call themselves Hebrews and so I just say "We're Hebraic" if any one asks.
We didn't do a formal sedar this year, no haggadah - but we re-read the story and had a beautiful dinner and thanked Him for our rescue. My lamb was wonderful but every thing else was an absolute flop.
It didnt help that dh didn't get off until 10pm and we didn't get started until 11pm!!!!
Thats another rant though.
Rozzie --- maybe next year...yes, that stretched thin feeling stays and stays. :) It gets better when the youngest is about 4 though. I can't believe I got 5 more years until this babe is 4.
Cristeen and FM - if you guys made it to Ripleys I'm happy for you and sorry I didn't email.
We recieved the news that DH's mom is very ill so we are going to rent a mini van in April and head to Idaho to see her. Its going to be very cost prohibitive and I can just cry thinking about how we are going to afford it, but theres always a way. Anyways, all that to say that no spending money for anything for us until probably May. :(
Hi ladies. We're doing fine over here, luckily most important things are going smoothly. Kusha's been walking for a week and now he wants to walk everywhere. He's also going through some kind of fussier-than-normal growth spurt, and not sleeping well at all, so I'm pretty sleep-deprived but keeping it together. Trying to finish my thesis so that I can graduate and focus on Kusha and finally getting our house in order (it's a cosmetic fixer and we bought it while I was pregnant, so naturally we've made very little progress). I'm planning his first birthday party (!) at a local park, and my parents are coming from DC. My mother-in-law is also coming. I'm afraid to make a list of invitees, I'm pretty sure it's going to be huge.
I finally made an appointment with my naturopath and the cloud of PPD is slowly lifting. I got records from the hospital from birth (in the admitting paperwork, the reason for transferring was "failed homebirth" - thanks, L&D) and freaked myself out with the surgical report. I have a lot of thoughts about how things worked out. What I'm taking away from the whole thing is that I refuse to consent to anything I'm uncomfortable with (ignoring PROM, inducing with castor oil, being told to push when I don't feel pushy), and I refuse to be rushed next time around. And I'm going to choose my care provider a lot more carefully. I feel like my midwife let me down in a big way.
We're nowhere near weaning, he's obsessed with the boob! I'm generally tolerating it ok at night though the last few nights he's insisted on staying latched for an hour+ at a time, and I honestly can't deal with it anymore. Hopefully this phase will pass soon. I have a feeling that when he eventually weans, it won't be pretty.
Oh yeah, period is still MIA. Had a pregnancy scare because of some spotting exactly 7 days after I *thought* I ovulated but 4 pee sticks say BFN. Thank you, universe.
Rozzie and Kamiro (OneMore? What's your real name again?) - Passover was... well, crazy. The oldest kid in attendance was 4 years old, none of the kids want to sit still or eat and the service was pretty rushed and hectic and maybe a it confusing for the kids - but we were trying to get it done before the kids ended up as melted puddles of whining under the table. In the end, we didn't finish it (I said "you drink two more glasses of wine and everyone shouts, 'next year in Israel' and then that's it") because my oldest, Nigella, was laying on the floor crying and my friend's 2 year old was in his mother's lap melting down about something or other so everyone just went home to get kids into bed. It was fun and crazy and chaotic but even with the inglorious finish I think we'll try again next year. It would also DEFINITELY have helped if my husband was home. I'm an awkward hostess, I really require him to help smooth things over and be the calming influence.
As far as Hebraic goes, I suppose that makes sense! My parents aren't Messianic because to be that implies that you were Jewish to start with, and we weren't- but they call themselves Messianic to self-identify. My sister married a man from Israel. He isn't religious, but he keeps Passover and the other feast days as a culture thing (can't even begin to explain to you how in love my parents are with my sister's husband! He can read all the prayers in Hebrew and help them with some of the more formal services), he just identifies as Israeli which makes it pretty easy.
Maryam - so sorry to hear about the PPD. A birthing experience that leave you feeling let down definitely doesn't help with anything- I hope next time, whenever that happens, you can look back at it with happy memories. I'm glad it's starting to clear up a bit for you. As for a boob-obsessed baby- yep, I hear you there. My first weaned at 3 years old for that reason- and it was a forced wean. We were pretty slow and gentle with it so the tears were pretty minimal. She didn't think she was ready but I was done- also probably helped that i was pregnant with Everett so the milk was disappearing anyway.
Birthday parties- super low key. Will go to my mother in law's house. They'll make dinner and have a cake. That'll be about it.
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