So…wow..i have been really bad at posting…
work is really keeping me busy…i have this super big project that I had to have pretty much spec’ed out before my vacation and it has been taking my focus and creativity…

Our vacation starts on Friday! We can’t WAIT! We are flying to south FL – Gulf side – to stay at a resort my seester manages…
Well I can sort of wait – because
How do you pack for a 6 month old baby? Just how much money am I going to be spending in checked baggage? We couldn’t drive – the Zerker HATES being in the car too long unless she falls asleep….My cousin lives down there and a friend of hers is letting us borrow a stroller. We have to check the car seat…and the rest we will just wing…Zerker is pretty good at sitting without the boppy, she can sleep in her carseat or we can set up pillows around her on the floor…or I could rent a pack n play – or I could buy one on craigslist…

Oh and there is the fact that, um, I haven’t been able to eat anything but chicken broth and ice cream since Saturday. My throat feels like it got stuck in a garbage disposal, and my fever finally left….I am on antibiotics and I think it will pass – but darn I really want to be totally well for our vacation…nadie doesn’t have any more vacation days left because of the week zerker was born…

Oh and the Zerker had her first ear infection and was on antibiotics

Oh and she got her first tooth.

Oh and she is eating solid foods.
All of this happening when my new job is going full force…
Um…can you say crazy life?

ouch – not gonnna say anything…

It has been a month and I haven’t written one post.
I go through these phases, from one extreme to the next sometime, I guess.
And while I have been keeping up on my friends blogs (maybe not commenting as much), I think I bit off a bit more than I could chew with my google reader and I just can’t keep up. Argh! You mean I can’t raise a 4.5 month old baby, work full time, manage a household, do fun things with my family on the weekends AND ready 200+ regular bloggers? Nope – I guess I exceeded my limitations.

Sooooo much has been happening over the past month.
I have tons of re-caps….

4 month old well baby visit and immunizations. Zoe was super healthy and growing like a weed. 75th percentile in height, 60th in weight and 50th in head size….reaching beyond expectation in strength and capability…

Zoe had her first sicky. She still is a little congested. She was never full on sick and never needed to go to the doctor, but she got her first cough from her daddy and got congested. She never seemed fussy about it.

We went to Chicago for a cubs game a few weekends ago. The in-laws were in town and came with us. Zoe got to meet her grandpa(daddy side) for the first time. Zoe was a trouper and we had a great time with the BEST pizza from Gino’s East. Last year we had Giradanos and Ginos was just sooo much better for some reason.



Zoe visited the woods twice. She met my good friend Rosa.

My sister sang the National Anthem at the Indianapolis 500 race this past sunday. Nadie and I got to go to the race with my family. My cousin watched the Zerker. We had a great time, but I missed my baby.

This past week the Zerker seems to be teething very hard. Friday was the fussiest day of her life…I hate to see her in pain. I can feel teeth poking through, but I feel like there is very little I can do. I give her cool teething rings, frozen wash cloths, anything to get her through the worst of it.

In sad news, Zerker’s awesome caregiver on the days of the week that I go into the office has some other important priorities that mean that she can’t watch her anymore. We visited the daycare and made a deposit. Their are pros and cons to it. It is much closer to our house. It will give her a chance to socialize with other babies. But, it felt a lot more institutional than I would prefer. She will be exposed to a lot more germs. We have to get special Drs orders to keep her on the same formula. We tried her out on the kind that they give in the daycare and it seemed really make her tummy hurt. She will not get so much individual care. We can always switch to a different place or a home care if it doesn’t work.

She is getting SOOO big and SOOO strong. She can sit up by herself for several seconds now. She is trying new things out all the time. I am so impressed with her. She has gone to two baseball games (one was a minor league) and managed really well.

I love her so much it hurts. I saw my niece Bree graduate last weekend. It was sort of surreal. Bree was the first baby that I was around and babysat. The years fly and I am so scared that I will blink and it will be the Zerker in a cap and gown. On the otherhand…I am loving watching her grow and learn…So happy…

Last night I stayed after work a bit to hang with a few friends. This means nadie picked up the Zerker. I really only got home thirty minutes later than usual, but I still had a bit of down time with other adults.

One of my co-workers actually asked me if I was considering putting the Zerker in pageants. She asked this not because she wanted me to, but because seh was worried that I would because she knew I was in pageants when I was a kid.

I was in maybe three pageants, and when I did them I was older, and it was mostly so I could be in the talent portion.

I consider myself a feminist. I am NOT a fan of pageants. I don’t think people do them just for the experience and the scholarships. I think that is an excuse to dress up a pretty girl and make her prance around. I think the girls that I met in pageants were fake, their moms were fake, and the judges were fake too. I can’t say if that made me fake too. I don’t begrudge my mother for putting me in them, it was something we tried and decided it wasn’t for us.

My mom started me in dance and gymnastics lessons when I was three. I started voice lessons when I was five. I performed in talent competitions from five until 18. Dancing was a way of life, learning discipline, fitness, skill, artistic sense….it ended up being a good experience for me. It was tough at times, probably a little more pressure than I would have chosen, but I definitely grew from the experience.

I also did community theater. That was super fun.

So, when my co-worker asked me, of course, I said, um, no…she ain’t gonna be in no pageants…(I said it just like that! Then I went to the bathroom and teased my hair to make it bigger…LOL)…and she isn’t going to wear makeup. I told Nadie that I would be prohibitting her from wearing makeup until she has to sneak around and put it on in the bathroom at school.

When I got home I started to think maybe I was taking too many pictures of the Zerker. I love capturing how she grows. She is beautiful. I know I am biased, but I am amazed at her physical beauty. Of course, I am not really the person to judge. But that physical beauty is not the reason I am taking so many pictures. I want to capture her smile over and over again. I love her different expressions, and how she can convey different things without being able to communicate verbally. I enjoyed taking pictures before, she is now my favorite subject.

Perhaps this is coming across as vanity.

I don’t know what things we will get her involved in. It really depends on what she wants. I will let her try different things out.

Nadie hopes she is into Math and Science. I think that would be cool. We want to foster education for her so that she thinks learning is fun. The years to come will be so exciting.

In other news, I have been having trouble sleeping. The night before last I just kept staring at the clock until after 3am. And, before that I had been waking up every hour. I think it is from the transition of being up with her to listening to her throughout the night. Ugh. I don’t think I can manage much more. Last night I finally slept well, and the Zerker went to sleep around the same time with me. Bliss.

—no pictures today….:)

This post is sort of long…sorry. I started it a few days ago and it seems to have a mind of its own….

Things are going well. I am very tired, as you might have noticed in that last post.
I (and the Lactation Consultant) think I have low supply.
Zoe has been doing marathon nursing sessions this week. I just can’t seem to satiate her. Most likely because Strike 1 PCOS, Strike 2 Nipple shield, Strike 3 C-Section.

By marathon I mean that she would be feeding for an hour, sometimes and hour and a half. And then it would seem like within the hour she would want more food. I was having trouble finding time and energy to pump on that schedule. I know it is pretty normal for a newborn to be cyclical…eat, poop, sleep, eat poop, sleep…wash, rinse, repeat…but this week she was more like eeeeeaaaaaat, poop, sleep, eeeeeaaat, poop, sleep….

I went to the LC today. She helped me with better latching technique. Hopefully I can wean the nipple shield at least on one side. I was able to latch without it when I came home. I am not totally against the nipple shield forever (I like saying ‘Activate the Lactaction Shields’ when I use it) …just willing to try anything to get her more food.

She IS getting enough though. She weighed in at 7lbs7ozs. She has gained a half pound over her birth weight in two weeks. Yay! That makes me happy.

Yesterday I ventured out into the world for something other than a doctors appointment. I went to my sister’s for a short visit (where I proceeded to leave my lump sum short term disability check and not realize it was gone until today – can we say ‘too tired to think straight??’) and then to visit my co-workers. The Zerker was perfect at work – sleeping the whole time. On the way home I got seriously concerned that I was way too tired to be driving. I made it home ok, but I really need to get better at gauging it. I am not used to these hours or the breastfeeding and I guess I don’t realize the toll that it takes on me until it just hits me and I can’t do anymore. Needless to say when we got home and I fed her again I went to sleep and then slept for more hours later when DH got home. We have begun using the supplementer to finger feed her so that she can still suck but not get over fed. DH can do that, and it gives him a chance to get involved.

This morning I felt completely refreshed because I did get several hours of sleep.
I went to the LC today. After a normal feeding session timeframe Zerker had only recieved about an ounce of milk. She has advised the following process: nurse on both sides for up to 15 minutes each, then supplement with an extra ounce by finger feeding and then pump for fifteen minutes…sounds familiar…nurse, supplement, pump…wash, rinse, repeat…I am also supposed to start taking fenu.greek and ask my ob for a rx of reg.lan.

She doesn’t take the bottle nipple well at all. It comes out too fast, then she spits it all back up. In two weeks I will work toward getting her to take a bottle better. I didn’t even know there were such things as ’slow flow’ or ‘medium flow’ or ‘fast flow’ bottle nipples. It isn’t something people discuss, they should make onesies that say ‘I like fast nipples’ on them.

I am so glad it is the weekend. DH is home. I have missed him a lot. I am pretty sure I could never be a housewife. It just isn’t my game. I don’t think I would be a very good housewife/SAHM housekeeping wise either. Of course, when you spend every other hour nursing and the other hours changing diapers and such, you can’t get much else done. Also, just miss the company of my DH.

These weeks are flying by. I wish time could slow down. It is wonderful to have her here every day. I know this post sounds like whining. I promise I don’t mind any of these problems. I don’t mind the no sleeping. Every coo, and every cry is totally worth it. If time would slow down then my bits and pieces of sleep would last longer too!

I mean how could you not just love this person?

Even if sometimes she is this person:

And sort of turns me into this person: