Parenting Fail

I have a cold.  My sinuses are plugged, and so I can't smell or taste.  No fun.

Anyways...

Last night, Nathan woke up at 1am.  I was not impressed.  I was getting 'soft' with my I-won't-feed-you-before-3am rule, so I decided to pull up my socks and stick to it again.  I gave him his soother, and left the room with him crying.  We did this for 45 minutes...and he was getting ANGRY.  Every time I gave him his soother he would frantically try to grab my arm, hoping that I would take him out.  I was staying strong though!  At the 45 minute mark, Jon had had enough and so he went to Nathan's room to close the door.  When he came back, he told me that he thought it smelled like Nathan had a dirty diaper.  Uh oh.  I got out, took Nathan out to check, and sure enough, his butt was covered in a thick layer of poop.  I felt like the worst Mother in the world.  Because of my cold, I couldn't even smell it!  I would have left him in it (unknowingly), assuming that he was crying because he thought he was hungry.  After cleaning him up I cuddled him on the rocking chair and rocked him to sleep...trying to win some brownie points with him.  Parenting fail.

6 Months Old!

I absolutely cannot believe that Nathan is six months old.  My baby is not a baby anymore.  It's so sad.  SO SO SO SAD.  And I'm not even a 'baby' person, at all.  I've never been the type to love to hold babies, but when it comes to my own, I wish they would be babies FOREVER.  Well, maybe not forever...but longer than this.

Nathan weighs 20lb 10oz and is 28.5" tall.  He's a big boy.  He has started wearing 12-18 months clothes and wears size 3 shoes.  To allow you to understand why I'm so blown away by his size and how weird it is to see him wearing the clothes he's wearing, let me give you these stats for comparison:

     Matthew - 19lb 2oz at ONE YEAR OLD
     Kayla - 20lb 6oz at ONE YEAR OLD

Yes, that's right.  Nathan is a little larger than Matthew and Kayla were at a year.  It's nuts.  So now you understand why it's weird for me to see Nathan wearing clothes that I know Matthew was wearing at a more developmentally advanced stage.

Speaking of which...Nathan is going to be a slow baby.  Another Matthew, I think.  Thank you, Vander Ende genes.  He's mastered sitting.  He still topples over on occasion, but I don't leave pillows around him anymore because it's not that often.  It's so nice...however...because he has learned to sit, he now HATES laying down.  Tummy time?  Ya, doesn't happen anymore.  Laying on his back?  Sure, a little.  Rolling over?  What's that, again?  I haven't seen him roll for weeks, so he probably doesn't even remember anymore.  He just sits and plays.  I'm not complaining...it's just a little funny to see this big baby sitting on the floor.  Oh, Nathan.  Each in their own time.

Nathan is eating three meals a day now, and he quite enjoys it.  He LOVES fruit and adult food.  He typically has 2 Tbsp rice cereal and some fruit for breakfast, bread with cheese and some fruit for lunch, and then a vegetable with potatoes and some prunes for dinner.  He loves eating what I'm eating, so he's tried everything from hash browns to waffles to cake to dried mangoes (yum!) to corn.  Matthew and Kayla love to let him try everything they eat too...especially if it's a candy.

He is no longer a two-hour bottle baby, but easily goes every three hours.  With the introduction of food, his naps have definitely increased in length (for the most part).  His morning nap is now usually about an hour long.  If we're out-and-about in the morning then his next nap can sometimes be stalled until 1pm, to be at the same time as Matthew and Kayla's.  If I'm lucky enough to do that, then he'll have one more nap in the late-afternoon still, to total three naps.  If we're at home, then he usually has four naps still...probably because he's not getting as distracted because I'm frantically trying to clean/tidy the house because I'm seldom home all day long and so housework suffers.

Nathan has become much better at sleeping at night.  He goes to bed at 8pm (at the same time as Matthew and Kayla, which is so nice!), and then gets one feed during the night, usually around 3/3:30am...and he is content with only receiving 3oz.  I'm pretty confident that he is only waking up for the cuddle with me, because there is no way that he needs the extra milk.  I'm not ready to start trying to drop that feed, and I really don't mind getting up for the five minutes it takes me to feed him.

Nathan has started showing strange.  He's even done it with my parents a couple times.  I think it's cute, because he just wants me :).

Nathan loves Lacey, my parents' dog, and he also loves it when I talk on the phone.  He starts smiling as soon as a dial a number.  He also loves it when Matthew and Kayla jump in front of where he is playing.  No one can get him to laugh like Matthew and Kayla can.

Mastitis

I got to 'celebrate' Nathan turning six months old by discovering I had (and still have) mastitis.  Yay.  After dropping down to only pumping twice daily, my one nipple started to really crack and the other started to bleed.  Yay.  Pumping was not pleasant, but I persisted.  This past Thursday I started feeling 'off' during the afternoon, so when Jon came home from school I left him to watch the three kids and went upstairs to nap for an hour before dinner.  Later that evening, I broke out into a fever and went to bed at 9:15pm.  By the next morning (Good Friday) my fever was gone, but I had light-red patch of red on my breast...so I figured it was mastitis.  Off to the clinic I went.  Apparently everyone needs a clinic first thing on a holiday Friday, because when I arrived there 10 minutes before the clinic opened there was already a lineup of about 10 people.  The doctor confirmed my diagnosis and gave me a prescription for antibiotics.

After being on antibiotics for two days I haven't noticed a whole lot of change.  I'm not sick at all (I was only sick that Thursday evening), thank goodness.  I've started pumping three times a day again, to get over this quicker, and within half an hour after my pumping session is over and for the next hour or two my breast feels like it is constantly being poked my needles.  Not pleasant.  I think it helps if I have a heating pad on it after I'm done pumping, so that's what I try to do.

Where do I go from here?  I definitely had cracking/bleeding issues when I was pumping for Matthew and Kayla, but I pushed then because the cost of two babies on formula was not something I wanted to consider.  But I also had an easier time dropping pump sessions for them.  I have no desire to be in discomfort from cracking/bleeding/infections this time around...but I still don't want to necessarily stop pumping yet.  And once you get Mastitis once, you're more susceptible to it.  A tough decision that no one can make for me.  At least we've made it to the six month mark right now!  With the rough start I had with feeding Nathan in the beginning I never would have imagined he would be drinking 99% breastmilk (seriously...he's only had 2oz of formula this past month, I believe)!

Kayla's Thoughts on Jesus

Kayla just said that, "Matthew doesn't like Jesus so Jesus doesn't like Matthew."  Where did she come up with that?!?!  I quickly explained that Jesus likes everyone, even if they don't like him.  My answer wasn't good enough, apparently, because she asked, "Why?"  "Ummm...because?"  

Dropping A Pump

For the past few months my milk supply has increased significantly (I now pump around 12oz in the morning, 8oz in the afternoon, and 12oz in the evening)...so much so that I stopped having to supplement Nathan with formula and had started freezing my overabundance.  If you had asked me a month after he was born if I would have predicted this, given the struggle I was having to increase my supply, I would have definitely said no.

Also over the past month I have started developing plugged ducts on a regular basis.  It seemed like every week I was having one day where I would be stressing out over making sure I unplugged the duct before it developed into mastitis.  Not fun.  I would add in extra pump sessions when my Mom or Jon were around to watch the kids.  It's hard to have a normal day when you can't take your mind off of your sore boob and what could happen if it doesn't get corrected.  Add this to the fact that I wouldn't call pumping enjoyable, makes for some discouraging days.

And you know how annoying it is to pack up my pump every time I plan on not being at home during the afternoon, which is like four times a week?  It's so annoying having to cart that thing everywhere I go.

I shouldn't be so negative...I'm lucky that I have a good pump and I'm lucky that I've only had to pump three times a day.  I couldn't imagine having to pump before every single bottle Nathan needed.

And I'm not going to lie...Jon and I always have said that we would love to have four kids...but doing fertility treatments is not in the plans for our fourth.  This baby, if it's God's plan for us, would have to be done 'au natural'.  Maybe that would be easy for us...but maybe not.  Either way, it's quite important to me that a fourth child be relatively close in age to Nathan (if I get a say in it!) because Matthew and Kayla have each other...so Nathan needs someone.  And getting pregnant really isn't an option until I get my period back...which if history repeats itself won't be until after I've completely stopped pumping.  Maybe dropping a pump so I'm only down to two will be enough?  I don't want to deprive Nathan of breastmilk just for my own selfish reasons.  I guess we'll see what happens.

Anyways, for all of these reasons, I have dropped my mid-day pump session, leaving me to only pumping twice a day, in the morning and in the evening.  I dropped it cold turkey, and it wasn't even that uncomfortable.  I hope it's not a decision I'll regret!

5 1/2 Months Old

I feel like Nathan has grown up and changed so much in the past couple weeks that it warrants a mid-month entry, just so that I don't forget exactly what has happened, and when.  (I reference my entries SO OFTEN.  Seriously.  I can never remember when my kids have done what in terms of development, and so I'm always looking back at Matthew and Kayla's monthly entries).

Anyways, over the past two weeks Nathan has been acting quite spoiled.  He just loves me so much that it pains him to be left on the floor.  Haha.  It's a good thing I love him 'so much' too.  He spends a lot of time on my hip, but if he's not on my hip, he can be found sitting on the ground.  He has become quite a pro at sitting.  He thinks he's a big shot now because if you try to lay him under his playmat, he cries.  He does not like to lay on the ground anymore...all he wants to do is sit.  It's almost too bad because he had just learned how to roll over...and now I haven't seen him roll over for a week or so, because he's never laying on the floor.  Oh well.

He has also started to show strange, and he dislikes gatherings where there are a lot of 'strangers'.

Nathan has a new facial expression which involves squinting his eyes and sticking his chin out.  It's the cutest thing ever.  I initially saw it when he would complain about being in his exersaucer, but now I've started to see it more often.

Over the past two weeks I have also added breakfast and lunch to Nathan's diet.  Introducing solids always stresses me out because I find there is so much (in terms of volume and selection) that a baby needs to be eating eventually, and not that much time to do it.  Meal times are the most frustrating time of the day with Matthew and Kayla (but mostly Matthew), so I often wonder if it's a nature vs nurture thing...and if it's nurture, how can I do things differently with Nathan?  Matthew and Kayla both were very picky when it came to chunky foods (and they STILL struggle with the texture of rice and ground beef), and so I've been introducing Nathan to chunkier food textures from the get-go.  Rather than feeding him pureed carrots at dinner-time, I just lightly mashed some cooked carrots leftover from last night.  He did just fine!  I'm hoping that this time around I can use less store-bought baby food and more of my own...just from what we are eating at dinner.  Maybe more of a baby-led-weaning approach.  Who knows...we'll see how things go.

Anyways, I think that's it.  Sorry for the poorly written post...it's the best I could do when I'm trying to get random thoughts out quickly so I can go to bed.  At least if I'm in bed I don't have to feel (as) guilty about wasting the latter part of my evening on Facebook rather than being productive.  Can I blame Facebook for the reason that I've once again fallen 2.5 months behind in creating my photobooks?