Transition

The transition truck rolled in and over me. A collision of factors came together and hit me hard. There was so many emotions flying around this weekend. It was the combination of getting ready to go back to work (and starting to work part-time) and being able to leave her and have some fun breaks.

The little breathers made me realize what I have done in the past 9 months. I never knew what a commitment breastfeeding would be. I wouldn’t change anything either, but I had no idea. I assumed that she would take a bottle when I went out and then at 6 months drink from a sippy cup and eat freeing me up some more*. The sippy cup never worked out and she eats well now, but that took about 6 weeks for her to really get it. Basically the two of us have been glued together and the longest time I could leave her was two and half hours and that was assuming she had just nursed. In the end she went from breastfeeding only, to still nursing but can also drink with a straw with her mamee and eat food at 7ish months. Last week, 9ish months, she drank breast milk with a straw with her grandmothers. I am sure if I had had a shorter leave from work that we could have pushed the bottle, but I am grateful that we have had the time to be together and let her just nurse and follow her own rhythm.

I have starting working part-time just a few hours a week at one of the harder places I work. I have a unbloggable job. It is too specialized and the world is too small to post about it here. But imagine running McDonald’s including the takeout window, kitchen and front cashier by yourself. It is crazy and corporate. Click here, click there and it all has to be done in so many seconds. I am paid by the minute and what I do each second is monitored. Pretty tough on a mama brain after being off for so long. I have been going once a week, but I realized that I need to twice a week to really get comfortable. I know that this will make my transition back to full-time work in November much easier. When I go back full-time it will be at the college, less corporate and more human, although at times equally challenging. I have also been pushing through the denial bubble and starting to get things ready for babysitting when I go back to work. We have a great place lined up, I couldn’t ask for better, but it is still a big transition for me and her.

Enough about work. I have also been sneaking in some fun. That is the best! Yoga, going out with friends and just getting in little breaks. I have been re-energized from it. The combo of getting some energy back and starting work has made me look back at the past 9 months, right back to labour. It is crazy how labour happens, which for me was 48 hours and a c-section and her getting sick and being in the nursery, and then I hit the ground running and barely looked back.

At first I felt steam rolled over by all the emotions. Now I am feeling more ready to push through and find my new stride. Right now it is all about transition and getting ready. In November I will be finding my new legs that will take me to work and while still being a mama. I am just going to go ahead and publish this. Please excuse any mistakes or things that don’t make sense. I can’t proofread because my brain is too tired from lack of sleep due to teeth that are still not through. It is not everything that I wanted to say, but is a bunch of what I have been thinking about.

*I see a huge difference between my American blogger friends and my Canadian stroller fit moms have experienced. Most of my stroller fit friends all have said the same thing…s/he never took a bottle. Most of were told the most important thing was to establish breastfeeding and that the bottle would interfere with that. Most of us thought that we could occasionally give bottles when we needed to be out. I am sure that for some babies that works, but for others it just doesn’t fly and selling them on the bottle takes some serious work. The longer parental leaves in Canada mean that many of the moms and babies I know have just stuck together and breastfed straight from the source until it was time for sippy cups or straws. I am amazed at what my friends have done with shorter leaves;pumping, bottles and juggling babies and work.

Prenatal class reunion

Their first meeting....

9 months later

I truly love all the families from our prenatal class. I can’t believe how big they all are. I also love hosting it and filling our house up with babies.

Drool in the stroller

For once the drool was mine, not hers. The bee loves crinkle things. Recently I gave my friend’s daughter a back to school treat of a bag of chips. Bee grabbed them and was fascinated. I thought…hmmm this is the perfect stroller toy. Cheap easy, to replace and keeps her occupied. I bought her a bag of chips to play with, not eat. The thing is, that it didn’t make sense to buy chips that I don’t like, because eventually I will eat them. I bought her my favorite kind, salt and vinegar. The only problem is that I like them a lot and I drool even just thinking about them let along pushing them around in a stroller right in front of me all day. They lasted two days. I just ate them. It turns out they aren’t the perfect stroller toy, but they are a very good snack for me.

Carseat update is that we can put off buying one a little longer! It turns out she still weighs less than 19 pounds and her infant seat goes up to 22 pounds. That is such great news. I completely underestimated the car seat buying challenge. It seems they are mostly made for SUV and minivans and at the very least full size cars. We have a tiny economy fuel-efficient vehicle and the infant seat only just fits. I have a few in mind (thanks for the suggestions!) to check on including the Radian, but I am going to have to bring the car to the store and see what actually will fit in the car facing backwards. I have a feeling that we will be buying whatever fits.

carseat stroller advice please

She is getting bigger. It suddenly hit me that she will grow out of her carseat soon. We had a handme down one from my sister in law, but it turned out to be too old and recalled. Any advice on one that travels well? I am waiting to hear Puffer’s review of the Sunshine Kids RADIAN car seat when she gets back from her traveling adventure. There are also some suggestions on a travel with babies site, but I am not sure if she is being paid to promote certain ones. We also need to get a light umbrella stroller for the car. We mostly walk every where every day and have a fantastic stroller, but it doesn’t fit well in our tiny car. Any super light umbrella stroller suggestions?

I am a snack machine

I used to supply the full meal deal supersized. She has nursed pretty much when ever she felt like it since she was born. After a short stay in the incubator, where she had to have bottles, she jumped straight back to breastfeeding and never looked back. In Cuba, it was really hot, she nursed night and day. Then at six months, when she never got the hang of the sippy cup and was slow to really get into food, I thought I would be nursing her until college. We were glued together and I didn’t leave her for more than a couple of hours at a time. I didn’t really want to leave her, but at the same time, it felt like forever and I couldn’t go out unless she had just fed.

Now it feels like all that happened in the blink of an eye. It turns out she likes to drink from a straw and just needed 6 weeks to warm up to the idea of eating. Now she eats with us and eats pretty much what we eat. I love it. No purees, just food that is cut up enough so that she can eat it and feed herself. It is messy, fun and it feels very natural.

She is starting to nurse less. Today she had milk one time between her morning and afternoon nap and once between her afternoon nap and bed. It felt so snackish of her. Normally she would drink twice in those times. Today she was too busy crawling, chasing the cat, trying to eat rocks and eating food to want more milk. She is still snackish at 4am however. I regularly think about taking that one out, but at the same time it is so sweet. She snuggles up and nurses with out needing to chase anything. Today I really feel the transition where I feel more like a vending machine where she grabs some food on the go and less like a sit down meal.

Revenge of the picnic monster

We are hardcore picnicers this summer. We mostly picnic with our stroller fit crowd. Stroller fit has been the best thing ever. It is in the park near my house and there is a great group of mamas and babies that go. After we strollering, we have a picnic. Once the Bee started crawling and really got into eating, she became a picnic monster. There are actually several of them at stroller fit. Some babies are happy to sit and eat and watch the world go by. The bee is one of the picnic monsters that crawls around and eats food dropped on the blanket, rolls around with other babies while they take each others food and drink from each other’s water bottles. Now that there are a bunch of babies are crawling it is chaos. The moms of the still breastfeed only, non-crawlers look at us with fear as they see their future flash in front of their eyes.

All that picnic monster behaviour is probably where she got the cold so now I have a snotty monster. She seems so small compared to me and I never thought that my little picnic monster could give me a cold. She did darn her! Now she is also making her mamee sick. I guess germs don’t care about size. Today she is better enough and we will picnic again.

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