Weekend with the girls

A couple of times a year, I like to go to Atlanta and see my best girlfriends.  It's so hard, because I have so many friends down there and not enough time to see them all.  But I got to see most of the ZTA girls when I was there this past weekend.  Here is a picture of us girlies...

It's Melissa Ayala Holland, Kara McLaughlin, Kim Robinson Schaff, Kristin Bayless Hammersmith, Stacie Wright Dees, and yours truly.

We hung out with Stacki on Friday, and got to enjoy seeing the boys (her twin sons Gavin and Owen) getting off the bus on their LAST day of kindergarten.  All of the neighborhood parents bombarded the kids with water guns and water balloons.  There were popsicles and water balloon tosses afterwards.  The boys were sad that they had to leave their teachers (ah, enjoy the innocence now!), which was really cute.  Friday evening, Kara, Stacki and I met up with Stacie, Braxton, baby Nathan, and Ayala at Mellow Mushroom. YUM!  I stole a beer glass, which is one of my favorite pasttimes.  :-)  Mellow Mushroom is one of my favorite pizza places- so I definitely needed a pint glass from there!

Saturday, Kara, Stacie, Ayala and I went up to the North Georgia outlets and did a little shopping.  I got a few things with my Ann Taylor gift cards that I had from Christmas and a few things for the kids.  But my big purchase was a Kate Spade big work bag. I'm so in love with this bag!  It was orginally $255, on sale for $179, with another 30% off.  So I got it for $134.  Which was about $100 less than my Coach purse, and it's twice the size!  Thanks to Ayala and Kare Bear for convincing me to get it! :-)

Saturday evening, we had a cookout at Kara's house.  Bayless and Kimmy joined us for burgers, pasta salad, pretzel salad (which I would like the recipes to both, ladies!), cheesecake, wine, and Taboo! Later on in the evening, Cory and Brie also joined us!  What?  Don't they live in Charleston?  Why yes, they do!  They were using the Delta pass to go to Costa Rica on Sunday for their honeymoon, but the flights from Charleston to Atlanta were full Sunday morning, so they had to go to Atlanta Saturday evening.  They stayed at Kara's with me, and then Kara was nice enough to take us all to the airport early Sunday morning.  I'm happy to report that they got first class to Costa Rica, and are enjoying their honeymoon!

Meanwhile, Todd and the kids went to Plymouth for the weekend.  Natalie got in some tricycle riding, and some time at the new heated indoor pool.  Also, Helen's birthday is coming up, so they had a nice dinner and cake on Sunday for her.  I won't say how old she is, but let's just say it's a big milestone! :-)  I'm sad that I missed it, but I got home Sunday afternoon and got several hours of cleaning and laundry in, which is so great.  Natalie was so cute when she got home, she said, "Mommy! I haven't seen you in a while!"  This is her new favorite phrase, because later in the evening, she said, "Let's read this book.  We haven't read it in a while."  

It was a fun, but exhausting weekend.  Now we are looking forward to our three day Memorial Day weekend!

Nursing No More

*DISCLAIMER*  This post is about breastfeeding.  If you don't want to read it, then stop now.

What is it about nursing your baby that is so unbelievably amazing???  I can think of 1,000 reasons why I don't want to nurse my son anymore, and only 1 reason why I want to.  Let's make a list... it really could get lengthy, but I'll try to keep it short.

Reasons why I want to stop nursing Grant, in no particular order

1. Pumping at work is distracting me from my job.  And pumping in a tiny 3x3 office is not fun.  Once I get heavily involved in a project, I have to drag myself to the pumping room and do my thang.  Then I try to come back to the project but inevitably end up with a "what was I doing again?" sort of feeling.
2. Makers Mark and Coke. Enough said.
3. Diet Coke.  Massively huge fountain sodas to pump caffeine through my veins so I'll stay awake when I am falling asleep at my desk after said baby feels like waking me up at 4 am.
4. Which brings me to probably the most important reason... SLEEP!  Daddy can give G bottles at night, which will allow me to get a full night sleep. 
5. Related, in order to not explode at 3 am, one must pump before bed.  I would like to pump at 7:30 or 8 pm, so I can get a decent nights sleep.  However, if I pump that early, I'm hurting by 3 am.  Of course, Grant is asleep, so I don't want to wake him before I go to bed OR at 3 am, but a woman's gotta have a release.  Because of this, I have to wait until closer to 9-9:30 to pump.  We NEVER wake the baby.  We let him wake us!
6. Traveling with my pump is difficult.  Good luck finding a place in the airport where you can go plug in the pump (aka: the beast) and get 'er done.  And TSA, for the longest time, would not let you go through security with breastmilk unless the baby was with you.  Ok, what do working moms do when they have to travel for work?  Brilliant, TSA.  Thankfully, they changed this rule.
7. Every single hour of every single day has to be thought of and planned for.  We're going to the park and then to lunch?  What time should I feed him?  In between the park and lunch?  At the restaurant?  At the park? What about the next feeding?  You don't want them spaced too far apart or together.  You are constantly thinking about the next feeding (and the next one, and the next one, and the next one...).  Logistics matter.
8. Several times I have gone to Red Sox games and had to hand pump in the bathroom at Fenway.  I had a couple of beers at Boston Beer Works before the game, so there went my liquid gold, down the drains in the Fenway ladies room.  (This was also the case at my work Christmas party).
9. Exhaustion.  Oh boy, the exhaustion.  I get that I am naturally exhausted from having a relatively new baby in the house, but he sleeps 9-10 hours at night, so the problem isn't fully him.  It's the breastfeeding.  It wipes you out.  It takes from me to give to him. 
10. I had D-MER.  Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex.  Here is a definition from http://www.d-mer.org/ :  "Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex is a newly recognized condition affecting lactating women that is characterized by an abrupt dysphoria, or negative emotions that occur just before milk release and continuing not more then a few minutes.
    The negative emotions, or dysphoria, that a mother with D-MER experiences often manifest "in the mother's stomach" - a hollow feeling, a feeling like there is something in the pit of the stomach, or an emotional churning in the stomach. Mothers report varying types of emotions with D-MER ranging from dread to anxiety to anger, these emotions fall on the D-MER spectrum which has three different levels. The common thread between these levels, is the wave of negative emotions or dysphoria, prior to letdown, when nursing, expressing and with spontaneous letdowns, that then lifts within another 30-90 seconds, and then usually repeats with each letdown."  It tends to be a little different with each woman.  Mine lasted about 30 seconds and I would get an overwhelming urge to sob hysterically.  I felt empty and strange, briefly ridden with anxiety.  And just as soon as it hits, it's gone.  Some people also claim they would get very thirsty.  That was me, EVERY time.
11. Maybe I should just stop here... I think you get the idea...

And here are the reasons why I felt I should continue nursing Grant

1. I love him.

That's just it. I love the little dude.  Plain and simple. But in the end, I gave him 6 months of my body and my life, just as I gave his sister. I wish I could have given him more, but it was far too difficult and I am far too exhausted to continue on. So as he finishes up the last of Mommy's Milk, I can finally say au revoir to this period in our lives and look forward to my little man growing up.  I truly look forward to having my body back, and having my favorite adult beverage again!

ADIOS SUCKERS!!!!

Grant gobbling up peas

So far, Grant has had rice cereal (we decided he didn't like it, even though we are still giving it to him!), Earth's Best sweet potatoes (liked it better than rice cereal but did not like them cold) and Earth's Best peas. I think of the three, he likes the peas the best! He actually opened his mouth for more this time.  I don't know if that's because he liked them more, or if he is just getting used to the process and idea of eating real people food.

Fun at the Farmer's Market

We got up early (around 7-7:30, which is pretty early for our kids) on Saturday and went down to Bakery on the Common for some breakfast and then across the street to the town square and the Farmer's Market. We got some of our favorite black bean salsa and some salstina (made of peas, parmesan cheese, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and spices made into a paste to put on crackers or bread). There weren't any fruit/veggie stands - this was the first weekend for the farmer's market - so we were a bit disappointed in that. We put Grant in the Jeep Carrier for the first time, and he really liked it.

Then we came home and did some planting.  I planted a few plants that Carole gave me for Mother's Day along with our Topsy Turvy strawberries.  We also repotted a basil that we bought at the Farmer's Market in the morning.  They said the bigger the pot you put it in, the bigger it will grow.  GOOD!  We love basil.  Then we had some playtime on the floor with Grant. He's very into this mirror (which was Natalie's) and laughs every time he sees himself. 

Natalie tried to give her brother some lovin' last evening and I happened to snap a cute picture, even though Grant looks terrified.

This, however, is what it escalated to.

Natalie in her big girl bed

Natalie has been in her big girl bed for over a month now, but I finally got around to taking a picture of her.  She has a convertible crib bed.  This is phase 2 - the toddler "big girl" bed.  She can get in and out with ease, and only fell out once, and that was on the first night.  We bought a rail specifically designed for convertible beds for it, but it didn't fit (none will fit because of white piece that holds the mattress in is too high.  For rails to fit, the white wood piece should be a little lower). Next, in another year or two, it will convert to a full bed. 

Grants first real food - Sweet Potatoes

Grant had some sweet potatoes last night.  He gets grumpy about 10 bites into the rice cereal and Maureen seems to think he just doesn't like it.  He seemed to tolerate the sweet potatoes a little better.  I mixed it in with rice cereal.  Since Todd wasn't here, I let Natalie have the honor of giving Grant his first bite of real people food.  Naturally, he blinked when I took the picture.

This is what he looked like at the end. Mommy likes to keep things tidy, and this was the best I could do.  You can kind of see his two little teeth just above his lower lip.  He is gnawing on things with even more fierceness in the past few days and I felt in around the top teeth and he has a hard lump there, along with a bit of broken gum.  Any day now, he'll have his third tooth!  (Meanwhile, has he bothered to roll over or sit up?  Nope!)

Single Parents

Todd is down in Charlottesville, VA for some procurement fraud training (sounds so exciting, huh!?!) so that leaves Mommy home alone with the kids.  So far, things are going pretty well.  Both kids were well behaved last evening, and I didn't have any problems getting them fed and to bed last evening.  Of course, Natalie and I ate waffles for dinner, since I am a nightmare in the kitchen!  Tonight it's chicken and rice, because it's kind of hard to screw that up.

Grant is doing okay with the rice cereal.  He can't quite figure out what he's supposed to do with it once it's in his mouth... should he chew it?  He just kind of spits it out with his tongue.  After about a half a bowl, he gets grumpy and starts crying.  Maureen said once we start mixing in something with flavor, he will probably enjoy it more.  Let's hope!  He is officially done nursing, and there's only a few days left of the BM reserves.  I'm sad, but I'm REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY looking forward to going to Atlanta next weekend and having some fun with my girlfriends!  No need to worry about pumping anymore, and I'm getting so much more done at work.

I've been thinking ahead to the weekend, and this is the first weekend of the Natick Farmer's Market.  We love to go and get fresh veggies for salads and fresh fruit for Natalie.  I can't wait until August when it's peach season.  The best peaches I've ever had came from the Natick Farmer's Market.  Bakery On the Common is there too, and we like to stop in for some breakfast.  I can't wait!

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day this year, Todd let me sleep in both Saturday AND Sunday.  Although I still got up at 8:30 on Sunday because I wanted to go out to breakfast.  We had a nice weekend and the kids were pretty good, even though they both are coming down with colds.  Natalie's colds are SO easy to deal with now that she has tubes.  I just can't get over it.  She gets a little grumpy though, which is always tough.  Grant on the other hand, had a fever up to almost 102 last night.  We let him fight the cold and didn't give him any Tylenol (generic - don't worry, I know about the recall) until bedtime.  He slept okay, but woke up twice in the 2 am hour, and again around 4:30.  It was my night with Grant, so all of my waking negated all of the beautiful sleep I received this weekend.  Oh well, maybe I'll get some sleep next year. 

We went to Maugus for breakfast in Wellesley on our way to Plymouth for the day.  Todd's parents are back from Florida, and it was good to see them again. 

You can see in this picture that Grant doesn't look very well. He was very pink faced. But he loves being fed by Grami!

We ate yummy hors d'oeuvres all afternoon, Chinese food for dinner, and we sipped on Warren's awesome cosmos with Todd's sisters Kathleen and Helen.  Good times!

Grant eating solids for the first time

On the 6th, we gave Grant rice cereal for the first time.  He ate it all right up.  I remember way back when, Natalie had a TON of it all over her (more on her than in her).  Grant TRIED to spit it out, but I think our parenting skillz have improved enough so that we are more spoon savvy this time around.  So he stayed surprisingly clean.  Here is his very first bite!

He wasn't sure what to make of it, but I think he liked it, despite the look on his face in the picture below.

Here he is with his empty bowl and his favorite person in the background.

The rest of our Charleston vacation

Believe it or not, we actually did a few things that were NOT wedding-related when we were in Charleston!  Or at least sort of not wedding related.  First, when we got there Wednesday, I went to Brie's bachelorette party in the evening.  We did a lingerie shower with champagne and strawberries and cheese in the Marion Square Park in Charleston.  It was SO much fun. 

Next, we hit Basil for some Thai food. YUM. Delish! After, we took a rickshaw to a bar that I can NOT for the life of me remember the name of.  We drank $2 PBR in a can.  You just can't beat that!  Then it was off to the Market Street Saloon for some dancing.  Well, what happens at the Market Street Saloon STAYS at the Market Street Saloon!  Just kidding, it was all innocent fun, but I just want to leave y'all guessing :-)

The next day for lunch, we all went to Triangle Char and Bar for lunch.  More YUM!  (Please someone give me some grease!!!) I love to eat, and Charleston has some awesome restaurants.  They had killer sweet potato fries with apple butter for dipping.  Even Natalie liked it.  After lunch, she wanted to go sit with Brie, and we snapped this picture of the two of them, looking super cute.

The rehearsal dinner was a lot of fun too.  It was at Magnolia's downtown.  VERY good food.  Brie surprised Cory with a special personal message to the happy couple from Craig Finn, the lead singer of the Hold Steady.  Mindy, Brie's sister, has a friend of a friend who knows him (or something like that!).  Anyway, they recorded him giving a shout out to Cory and Brie.  It was super cool.  The Hold Steady is one of his favorite bands, so he was ecstatic! 

We also got to spend some time with my mom's family.  I was with Brie and the girls most of the day Friday before the wedding, so Todd took the kids over to the Holiday Inn where my family was staying so the kids could FINALLY meet some of my relatives.  In the picture below, Aunt Patti is getting some quality Grant time in, with Aunt Barbara and Aunt Sara.  These are my mom's three older sisters.  My mom is the 4th of 7, right in the middle!

We also went out to dinner with the fam Saturday evening.  We went to the restaurant at the top of the Holiday Inn, which was pretty good and had amazing views of Charleston.  Here, we put a napkin on Natalie's head and called her Little Brown Riding Hood.

AND we had lunch with my cousin Stasi and her funny (and taller than Todd) husband Adam!  Here, he's wearing Natalie's shades...

Next, we enjoyed a horse and carriage ride in Charleston on Sunday.  It was so nice- the weather was beautiful and warm.  We got the most "desirable" route along the battery and Rainbow Row.  Apparently, there are like 5 or 6 companies that run horse and carriage trips but the city only allows a certain number of the carriages out on the road at any given time so it doesn't clog up traffic so much.  They also have different routes so they are evenly spread out through the city.  So when a carriage is ready to go out, it has to go by this little stand and get a ball from a bingo machine.  That ball dictates what route the driver will drive, and there are 7 different routes.  Pretty cool!  You can pick up a carriage at the Big Red Barn.  Natalie got to meet a chicken on our way there.

The house below was in the movie The Notebook, which is one of my favorites.  You know the scene where Rachel McAdams character Ali has a big fight with her mom and storms out?  That was filmed just inside this doorway.  Obviously a bunch of other people wanted to go see this too!

We also got to go to dinner with Cory and Brie Sunday evening.  We went to the Fat Hen and it was awesome!  I had the pork, and Todd had the skirt steak.  We would like to go back to Charleston just for the food!  Coco got some quality niece and nephew time in.  Don't Cory and Grant kind of look alike in the picture below?

Natalie told Cory that they had to walk down the ramp together, rather than taking the stairs.  So of course, he obliged.  I thought this was a very sweet picture of the two of them.

Lastly, we tried to go home on Monday, but once we got to the airport (and through security), we found out that due to bad weather in Atlanta, some of the passengers were re-routed through LaGuardia, which was our destination.  When riding standby, if the planes are full, we don't go anywhere. So my mom advised us to go to Cory's house because that would have been far better than sitting in the airport with two little ones.  But Cory and Brie were home sick, so we couldn't go there.  Talk about FRUSTRATING!  Meanwhile, Natalie decides that she really, really, really wants to go on an airplane and since she can't, she has the biggest tantrum EVER in the airport. Yep, we have become THAT family!

So we found a hotel near the airport with a shuttle, a bar, and a pool.  Thank you Radisson, for saving the day!

Natalie decided to sleep in the extra queen bed "like a big girl" while Grant took the pack and play. I honestly don't think there was room for another pack and play in our room thanks to all of our luggage.  So to make sure Natalie didn't fall out of bed (she's a WILD sleeper, all over the place), I placed pillows on one side of her, and I slept on the other side.  Well, I was head bunted in the head once, in the ribs once, I was bit, I was yelled at (in her sleep), and basically did not sleep at all.  And somewhere in the 2 am hour, Grant took a massive poop and I had to change his diaper (he is not a fan of wallowing in his own poo).  As if I wasn't tired enough! 

But in the morning, in the shuttle on the way to the airport, I heard Natalie say to her daddy, "I liked sleeping with mommy last night!"  I mean, what can you say to that???

I will leave you with one final pic from our vacation to Charleston.  A picture of one handsome little dude!