Staycation

Pardon the no blogging but I’ve been on “Staycation”. Since we have a new baby, instead of taking an actual vacation – we took a staycation. And what does that mean? We soaked in all the great things to do in the beautiful Boston area without the hassle of long drives, costly hotels, and luggage for 4.

We did local activities from Wed – Sat...Boston Commons, Aquarium, and Fanuel Hall. Baby O.G. was a joy the entire time even at his first sit down restaurant. Of course, I was a little bit stressed about bringing him to so many public places when he’s so young but otherwise it was enjoyable.


O.G. in his little penguin at The Aquarium


Cameron at the frog pond - we should buy stock in sun block


O.G.'s first restaurant (And on a side note, I thought I'd be thrilled to have cleavage but not so much...maybe because I thought if I ever had cleavage, it would be saline and not milk - ha!)

We also made a trip to IKEA which is my new favorite store. IKEA is total chaos but why is it my new favorite store? Because you can leave your kid at an awesome play area and go shopping. It’s great. Of course, security may need to be called when your kid won’t leave the awesome play area but it’s still the best thing EVER – good for the kid and good for the mommies :-) As for baby, he slept in the sling the entire time.

Since we were in the South Shore, we decided to pay a visit to my dad (a/k/a “Papa Bill”) who recently moved back to my home town. It was totally random and we brought Cameron to the local playground. I can’t believe I grew up in that town. A little team called the New England Patriots does play there but otherwise there is absolutely nothing.

Pre-School from Hell

Yesterday I brought Cameron to a "play date". Some moms and kids from his pre-school were going to be at a local park. Since Cameron is very shy, I thought it would be nice for him to meet some of his classmates before school starts. He's also been in desperate need of kids to play with. However, it was quite awkward. First, it was hard to find who was actually from his pre-school and there were some kids that had gone to the school but were now going on to kindergarten. It was a bit confusing and weird to say the lest. Cameron also kicked what I think was one of his future classmates. Yay.

We're also already overwhelmed with the pre-school and it hasn't even started. It's a co-op which we weren't really into but beggars can't be choosers - basically, it was the only place that seemed kosher to a 2 mom family and had availability. So with the co-op, one of us has to work there twice/month. Basically, we act as the second teacher on those days. Also, on those days we have to send in snack for all the kids.

So whatever, we justified this as it being nice to be involved with Cameron's school. Afterall, though we weren't obligated, we liked getting involved with his previous school.

Then we signed up and were sent a packet with a list of jobs. Jobs you say? Oh yes, apparently I am secretary and have to take notes at the MONTHLY board meetings and send them out to everyone. Then we got notification that we have to participate in the school clean up the weekend before school begins. If this wasn't enough, they also notified us that we'd have to solely clean the school on certain weekends (apparently, this alternates between all the families). Since Mary has agreed to do the teaching duties (since I have the baby at home), she thinks I should be the cleaner. Umm, I already have to keep our rather large house clean so I'm not super into sacrficing weekends to clean my kid's school.

If this all wasn't enough, they like to take "field trips" once/month and want parents to be available to drive groups of children to them. I just hope that the school is not going to be as much work as it seems.

Solo

The weekend was pretty lame. We spent most of it cleaning and organizing. On Sunday morning, I took Cameron to a playground. Note to self: when you have tailbone issues, don't attempt to go down a large plastic slide...even if your kid think it's quite funny. Second note to self: don't do it again even when your kid says, "do it again!". *ouch* We did have plans to ALL leave the house on Sunday afternoon but the rain cancelled that out. It is rainy so much lately and randomly. Anywho, I wasn't too bummed since I'm not super into taking O.G. to public places (since he's so young and without much of an immune system).

Today was my first day flying solo. Mary decided to let Cameron have an entire donut before leaving. Aside from health reasons, we limit sugar since he has quite enough energy on his own. So he was pretty much bouncing off the walls. He also managed to spill his full cup of milk at lunch. Speaking of lunch, I think I'm going to start making it the night before. Making his lunch while balancing the baby was not an easy task and I guess it will give me practice since I'll have to do that when he starts pre-school.

With all my focus on managing both kids, I forgot about the Chloe factor. As if Cameron and O.G. weren't enough, throw in a bit of a comic element of me letting Chloe out - her running to bark at people walking by and then me chasing BoBo who escapes from the house. (All the cats are indoor) So it was a spastic day to say the least but I did manage to at least start some laundry though after cleaning all weekend, the house already looks like a bomb blew up.

On a positive note, thank goodness Cameron takes a nap and for the baby sling though of course he managed to pee all over it. What's with babies pee'ing *and poo'ing* outside the diaper?

Pain and Exhaustion

My recovery continues. My lower back/tailbone has still been causing me quite a bit of pain so I mentioned it when I went in this week for a 2 week follow up. So along with two 3rd degree tears, apparently the baby also bruised my tailbone. Mary told me that her mom had bruised her tailbone and that it took her a year to recover. The midwife said it should be about 4-6 months. Yay. I definitely didn't expect this pain level so many weeks later...and now to hear that it will continue for months is disheartening to say the least.

In other events, Mary is home and Nana Patty (a/k/a my mom) is home in Ohio. She was flying out early this morning from Providence, RI. The flights were ridiculously cheaper out of Providence (compared to Boston) so that's why she flew out of there. I had the privilege of waking up at 3:30 this morning to drive her there. Of course, I didn't mind doing this since she's provided a lot of help over the past month but I am totally exhausted. I thought I would get to sleep when I got home since I planned on Mary taking over Owen's feedings. Then I realized we were out of formula so Mary could not feed the baby. Just another saga in breastfeeding. Obviously, if he was exclusively formula fed, we wouldn't run out without me realizing it.

Anywho, I'm definitely bummed that my mom has gone home but I think we'll be able to get into some sort of routine here or at least be able to organize things better. I have my fingers crossed that this happens sooner than later.

O.G. meets the Fam

We made a trip to my aunt's house so O.G. could meet the fam. We haven't ventured out many places so it was a bit overwhelming. It was also my first real sleepless night. He seemed to have a belly ache most of the night so even when he was sleeping, he kept moaning. I debated cancelling with my aunt but we made plans to go there in the morning and many people were going to be there. Luckily, O.G. was a joy of a baby and awake almost the entire time. I figured after not sleeping much or well the night before, he'd make a liar out of me since I'm always raving about how alert and good he is.

Big brother Cameron was also very good. Aside from his usual of not wanting to go in the house and then not wanting to leave (this is typical Cameron fashion), he just played with my younger cousin most of the time. Though of course everyone had baby gifts but only one person remembered a "big brother" gift so I made sure Cameron was in the play room when I opened the gifts. You definitely have to walk a fine line with the older sibling as to not create jealousy or bitterness.

Anywho, there was also the interesting thing of having a new baby and then going to a family gathering. You pretty much forfit your rights to your baby and watch him get handed around...even to children. It was kind of scary and luckily my 12 year old cousin is remarkably good at holding a baby since I thought I was going to freak out as my aunt handed O.G. to him. Of course, some how every time the baby needed his diaper changed, he was given to me. Go figure!

In other news, wifey is coming home early. Instead of Friday night, she'll be home tomorrow night. Yay! I don't like when she leaves on business regardless never mind when we just had our first bambino.

Latch Without a Flash

Cameron is still napping and Baby OG is with his Nana. It's quiet and there's a breeze. :-)

Anywho, this was going to be a boob post. Breastfeeding is going well for the most part. Though I have started to supplement with formula on a regular basis because I just wasn't meeting Owen's demands and I just can't deal with a hungry baby or one that is attached to my nipple 24/7.

I have also been pumping quite a bit. As much as I dislike the pump because it's way more painful than a direct feeding, it's given other people the opportunity to feed him and I can know the actual quantity that he's getting. I also don't do public breast feedings so it's been nice to make a bottle of boob milk. I know, it's breast feeding and not a dirty thing but I just can't be incognito about getting him on the boob. Yes, once he's on, you can barely tell I'm feeding him but getting him to latch without a flash - it's just not going to happen.

It also seems that my right boob works a lot better. What's up with that? It's clearly bigger and when I pump, I get way more quantity than the left. Is this normal? Very strange.

I must say the one thing about breastfeeding that I dislike the most is - I WANT MY BODY BACK. I love my baby but he was living inside me for 41 weeks. There was also more 2 week waits than I want to remember where I had to live as if I was pregnant. Well, girl just wants some spicy Mexican food and a Margarita. I also planned on living on Red Bull once I delivered. LOL. Mary thinks I'll discontinue the BF'ing until OG gets a tooth. I think at that point I'll just pump and bottle feed more. We'll see...I can't believe I'm analyzing my boobage.

To the Zoo

Mary was home for less than 48 hours and is now back up in Maine :-\ She won't be home until Friday night. It definitely sucks to have wifey away on business when OG is only 2 weeks old. I just hope the weather holds up since she's supposed to be out on boats all week.

The weekend was pretty good though I feel I'm overwhelmed in general. We did venture out to the zoo on Saturday. This was pretty much Owen's first outing and he did good. Mary did have a little reality check of us not being able to leave the house 20 minutes after I wake up. Umm, there's a lot that needs to be done to take baby out. He pretty much slept through the entire thing accept for waking up to eat. Pretty much if you keep the boy fed and changed, he's content.



Baby stuff is easy but doing baby stuff and Cameron stuff simultaneously - not so easy. Cameron has just been chaos which I keep having to remind myself is typical 3 year old boy behavior. But it's just way more relevant now that there's a quiet little baby in the house. On a positive note, Camer doesn't seem jealous of the baby nor is he really phased by him. He does usually refer to him as "that baby" which I'd like to change but I'm just happy that he doesn't seem jealous.

Luckily, OG continues to be an easy going baby and is still sleeping good. Though we've had a few nights where he wakes up every 3 hours, he usually sleeps about 5-6 hours straight. Sometimes I will wake him up after 4 hours to feed. One since I worry about him getting enough food and two because I'd rather wake him up than him wake me up. I'm definitely jolted into a panic when he wakes me up crying so luckily we haven't had too many of those.