Don’t you hate it when you’re wide awake at a time when normally you’d be fast asleep? And the whole reason that you’re wide awake in the first place is because your baby is sleeping?

I know that it’s normal when you’re up at 3:18 in the morning because she’s not sleeping…that’s totally expected and normal. But to be awake because she’s not awake???

Yep, that’s where I am right now. She slept past her normal feeding time, which is good. Great, actually. But that’s abnormal, so now I’m wide awake.

Plus she slept later, so my boobs got more full…which meant I had to pump during the middle of the night, which is something that I haven’t had to do in a few weeks, so that made me even more awake…and here we are.

Here’s to hoping that blogging this is gonna make me sleepy…fingers and toes all crossed!

Whatever happened to Jeff Foxworthy?  Does he still do stand up comedy acts?  Does he still have the TV show that makes adults look stupid because we can’t outsmart a 5th grader on a normal day?  Man, that show was funny!  Anyway, remember how part of his stand up act used to have the tag line “And here’s your sign…”?  He would award that to people who were quite obvious doing something stupid and having no clue about how stupid they were being.  Also VERY funny…

I feel like there are days that I need a “sign” of my own…like today, for instance.

Now you know that I can’t tell you a story without sharing a little background on it first…so settle down and get comfy.  (Just kidding, it’ll only take a minute!)  So we all know by now how silly I was about pumping (or not pumping) when Jax started day care.  And we all know by now – because I keep harping on it – how paranoid I am about being silly the second time around.  So I’ve really tried to take a very pro-active approach this time…I’m taking some supplements that maybe I don’t need to take necessarily, but they help me feel better mentally, so I take them, and I’ve tried to stay right on top of my pumping sessions each day.  Like a good little girl.

I’ve taken this so seriously that even though I felt a little weird about doing it, the first day that I took Madi to day care, I set up reminders to pump every three hours on my phone.  That way I would get little alarms throughout the day reminding me to drop everything and pump because nothing else could possibly be more important than that, right?  I felt silly doing it, but was encouraged with some of my other BFing friends admitted to doing the same thing.

Because let’s face reality here…work is a time warp.  It has a somewhat magical ability to make time pass as quickly as it wants…or as slowly  as it wants.  I really don’t know how that happens, but it’s true.  You can be so busy during the day that you get wrapped up in a project and forget all about your good intetions to pump every 2-3 hours…thus the need for these little reminders.  And working at home is no different for me.  In fact, it’s somewhat harder.  If you sew, or do any type of craft, maybe you’ll understand how you think in your head that this one little thing will only take one little minute…and then you look up and 2 and a half hours have passed…what?!?  How did that happen?

If my husband is reading this post, he’s laughing and shaking his head…he’s learned to just go on to bed without me if I get started on a project after the kids go to sleep…there’s just no reason to wait up on me.  No matter how fast I think that I’m going to be!

So that’s what I did to try to stay on top of things.  Set up these reminder alarms.  And then I made them repeat daily…every day until I stop them from repeating.  On the plus side, at least my calendar looks like I’m in high demand!  On the down side?  You can hit Snooze…or Close…depends on how you set it up, and the whole thing GOES AWAY!!!

And here’s my sign…

The question remains in the forefront of my mind: exactly what did I hope to accomplish by setting up those reminders if I choose to ignore them?

Again, there’s my sign…

To give myself some credit (and to make me feel not quite so bad) I’m supposed to pump 4 times while Madi is at day care at various times throughout the day.  So far, in two full weeks, I’ve only had one day where I only pumped three times.  But I’ll be completely honest and say that there have been days (like today) where my fourth pump session, which should have happened at 5 o’clock actually took place closer to 6…or 6:30.

Oh well.  I can only try to do better tomorrow, right?  Right.  Until then, I think that I need to disable the “Close” button…or make them true alarms so that at least if I “Snooze” it, it’ll go off again in 15 minutes to remind me that it’s time now.  Like today when the event reminder went off at 2pm, and I knew that I needed to wait until 2:30pm…because I didn’t pump when the previous reminder went off at 11am, you see how it snowballs?  And then when I finally looked up at the clock, it was 3:08…that’s when I knew that I have truly earned my sign and I began to wonder about my thought processes.  Ugh…like I said, at least tomorrow’s another day where I can try to do better!

Have a great weekend!

I think that this picture really says it all…

Part of me is sort of embarrassed to show you my pitiful little freezer…just crammed with junk.

Except that most of the space is there is taken up not by junk, but by my liquid gold. You can’t even see it all because I shoved it all towards the back the other day to make room for the frozen chicken breasts.

What is liquid gold, you might be wondering? Don’t worry, I’ll tell you – breast milk. I’m proud to say that this time around, unlike last time with Jax, baby girl has taken nothing other than my own milk. I don’t say that to brag, in no way/shape/form or fashion is that what I’m doing here. Please keep in mind that my first child took not one single drop of breastmilk, and Jax was a mixed-fed baby (taking both formula and breast milk). So it’s not because I believe that this is the right thing to do, that it is what’s best for my baby and the only way to do things. I’ve seen how healthy and well-adjusted a child that has only been fed formula her entire life can actually turn out. It’s not anywhere near as scary as some would have you believe.

But having breast fed my second child, and I was struggling with milk issues by this time in his little life, I can tell you that it’s not all fun and games. In fact, it’s a LOT of work, this breast feeding. It’s no fun to deal with clogged ducts, cracked/sore nipples, to constantly have someone literally tugging at your body for nourishment, and remembering to pump on a strict schedule so that your production doesn’t fall…that’s a big one for me.

There’s also nothing like having them feed…be it in the middle of the day or the middle of the night. It’s one of my favorite times spent with her. No worrying about if the bottles are clean/filled/warmed up. You’re the bottle. The milk goes where you go, which is so incredibly nice. And the bonding and healthy nourishment issues just tip the scale further for me.

But what really sells it? For me, anyway…

It’s FREE.

Well, free for the most part. Sure, there are breast feeding supplies that you need to have (bras, tops, pads, storage bags, nipple butter, etc.). But have you priced formula recently? It can be anywhere from $20-30 per can, depending on the brand that you’re using. And that’s if you can use the cheap stuff you can get at your local Wal-Mart. Heaven forbid you need the expensive stuff that you have to get through your doctor or the hospital…

Free works nicely in my meager budget right now. So free it will be.

But is it still “free” if I have to buy another stand alone freezer just to store my breast milk?

Oh, what a problem to have! I’ll just thank my lucky stars that for right now, I’m able to produce almost double what she needs to take in each day…yes, we’ll be thankful for that and worry about storage space when I can no longer find a spot for those frozen chicken breasts…

Mother’s Day was a great day around our household…and I hope that yours was too. My day started off with some of these…

I also got three very sweet cards from my loved ones…one from all of the kids (all 53,000 of them). Then a sweet one from Brent and a funny one. It’s a habit of his, to get two cards…just one of those things that he does.

Not pictured? The chocolate covered strawberries…I ate them too fast to get a picture of them! And they were delicious. I thought that I was all special for getting them until I went to put them in the fridge and saw the second container…that Jenna managed to talk Brent into buying for HER! Yep, she’s learning early…it makes a mother’s heart swell with pride!

It was also nice to have someone else getting up every time I would have gotten up to get the kids something. I can’t tell you how many times I heard “Relax. It’s your day!”

But the best gift?

The one that inspired this whole post???

He did the floors.

Yes, you read that right. It didn’t cost a thing, except for his time and labor. But Brent swept and steamed all of the floors downstairs for me…just because he knew that I would be doing them the next day, and he wanted to do something nice for my day.

Gosh, I love that man!!

See all those bags? Those are all orders that I need to take to the post office. Meaning those are all SALES that Little Bitty Things made…in ONE day!! Can you tell that I’m a little bit excited over here?

I’d love to sit here and tell you all about it, but that’s gonna have to wait for another day. Because this girl’s got to figure out how to get all these orders loaded up and dropped off at the post office…

…and that’s a problem that I certainly don’t mind having! If only I could do this everyday…LOL!