11 weeks, 5 days

Hanging out with Curtis...

So its already September, I can't believe it! Its already time for school to start next week. I will be going back full-time but will be home with Christopher 5 days per week instead of working. Chris will be home with him the other two days, and so, the baby will get to be with just us until the Spring semester when he'll be almost 8 months old. We're very excited about that! By then, I feel like he will be at an age where there can actually be some benefit from 2 days of daycare per week. I had lunch with a friend last week who announced she is pregnant for the third time, and although her mother moved in with she and her husband, she continues to put her other two kids in daycare a couple days per week. She said they began to thrive when they were surrounded by all the other kids and wanted to do all the things they saw the other kids doing. So that was really nice to hear, that daycare is good for kids at a certain point and not something to dread. I think it will be fun for Christopher when he's 8 months to be in the infant room at the daycare near campus, he's already a sociable guy who prefers smiling at ladies!

I had my first day away from him last week, well, sort of away from him... I had an all-day orientation at Butler Hospital for a clinical I am doing there this year, and Chris was home. So I brought my pump, notified the instructor that I'd be taking breaks (she was so nice about it and went on about breastfeeding her babies! People really are understanding about this kind of thing) but when I tried to pump, I got nothing. I tried forever, virtually nothing came out. And so, despite having enough frozen milk to feed him for weeks at home, Chris had to meet me to feed the baby as I couldn't go 8 1/2 hours without draining my milk. They actually took a nice long walk around and waited so I could feed him a second time. So that didn't go too smoothly, but they had a nice day anyway because it was beautiful outside and Christopher loves going for walks. I had stopped pumping for a couple of weeks because it seemed like every hour I was either feeding or pumping, but I'm getting back to doing that now. He still eats all the time, so the two days I'm out I'll be managing one or two feedings with him per day - the pump just doesn't drain as well as he does.

Despite two nights last week where he slept until 5 a.m., he is back to the waking up at 2 a.m. I've been feeling really lousy this week and assumed it was just the sleep deprivation catching up with me, but based on my symptoms the doctor thinks I contracted Lyme disease. The titer comes back next week, but he said they often has false negatives, so I shouldn't wait for it and start the antibiotics now. Everything is fine with feeding the baby if that is in fact what I have, and the antibiotics are fine when used short-term, using them for months would cause a risk for teeth discoloration for the baby. I'm on it for two weeks which Chris said is safe.

One last update - Christopher and I went to church this morning and he really seemed to like it. He was in awe of the people singing and looking around the church. We are planning on taking his baptism class next week.

Happy Labor Day weekend!!



Andrea