Mamuschka mania! WW: One day down, 9w6d to go...

My babygirl's favorite toy right now is the set of Mamuschka nesting dolls I got at a Russian dollmaker's store in Amsterdam. She can entertain herself with these things for, like, half an hour at a time. That's an eternity in baby parenting time. Here's some pictures of her with the Mamuschkas. That's an apron she's wearing; her daddy thought she might like to help me make dinner. Not so much when there's Mamuschka dolls to be played with!







So I started Weight Watchers yesterday. I'm doing their Flex Plan point system thing because basically I need to watch portion control and grazing more than my food choices. Imagine my disappointment to learn that I only get 24 points to eat per day. And that once I lose *1 pound* I'll be in a new weight range that only gets 22 points per day. And that, despite having eaten next to nothing so far that day and being hungry already at the meeting, I had already consumed enough points that I only had *2 points* left to get me through the day! Fortunately, we are given 35 points extra as "mad money" points to consume throughout the week. I needed 4 of those to be able to eat dinner. Part of the problem here is that a cup of coffee with 2 tbsps creamer and 2 1/2 sugars is 5 points. Aaaargh! So I need to start drinking diet soda as a caffeine delivery method. Just not as satisfying at 4AM, let me tell you. Anyway, I'm off to a more solid start today. You basically HAVE to eat fruits and vegetables to feel halfway full because they're the only things that don't have shit-tons of points. So I had a peach and a cup of coffee for breakfast. Halfway through the AM I'll have 2 scrambled eggs and a drink box of chocolate soymilk (which I just love, I know, I'm weird). Basically I just can't snack. At all. Which makes the day super extra long somehow. But I was able to keep my nose out of the feedbag yesterday afternoon/evening. And the silver lining? The medical digital scale Weight Watchers uses for their weigh-in is kinder than my bathroom scale at home! It told me yesterday that I weighed 175.8 lbs. I'll take it.

Tonight I'm going to try to force my lard-ass onto the treadmill after babygirl goes to sleep. Oh, joy.

Cuddlebug

I had a wonderful weekend with my babygirl. She came grocery shopping with me, and flirted up a storm with all the little old lady shoppers and the cashiers. She ate a bunch of food, bringing much joy to this mother's heart, and is clearly in the process of making us a bigger baby. I had to go down into the basement and break out the plastic totes full of 18-month-old clothes inherited from Auntie G's daughter L; it was like Christmas all over again. Hooray for hand-me-downs!

Sunday is my laundry and housecleaning day. Babygirl spent, literally, an hour playing intently with (a) a clean black bra she fished out of my clean laundry, and (b) a colorful little vinyl teddy bear which long ago broke off the toy bar of her (now retired) walker. Why did it never occur to me before that these two items clearly go together? She laid the bear down and tucked it in with my bra. She wrapped my bra around her head like some sort of bondage gear and then tucked the bear in under her chin. She stood the bear up and wrapped my bra around it til only his head was visible. And then, just like *that*, she was done with both items and moved on to the next thing.

My babygirl loves *loves* LOVES the Wiggles. Just can't get enough of them. We've got 4 Wiggles DVD's with enchanting names like "Hoop-Dee-Doo, It's A Wiggles Party!" and she would watch them all day long if we'd let her. She gets to watch them on my old portable DVD player, which has several buttons that don't work and is therefore the perfect item for a baby to use given that she likes to smack the buttons with her open palm. When not in use, the DVD player in its case hangs by its handle from the top of the bookcase in her room, right above the changing pad on top of her dresser. Interestingly, since we started putting it there, she constantly uses the sign we taught her for "need a diaper change." Then she'll lead me or my hubby into her room by the finger, and while we change her diaper, she'll point at the DVD player shouting "That! That!" You know, she's never enjoyed having her diaper changed, and generally prefers to wait until her pee-pee filled diaper is at the point of exploding to be changed. Now she'll ask for a diaper change practically every half hour because it gives her another chance to ask to watch the Wiggles. We only let her watch twice a day, and use the time she spends glued to the little screen to shower or fold laundry. Does that make me a bad mommy? No, I think not, just an opportunistic one.

Also Sunday, she took an absolutely perfect nap. At 11 AM, she asked for boobies. She nursed until she was done, climbed across my chest into the "put me to sleep" position, laid her head down, and closed her eyes. She was out almost instantly. I gently rolled her off me and made my escape. She slept exactly long enough for me to make a BJ's run for diapers and wipes, and to sweep/Swiffer the back hall all the way up to the second floor, no small task given our big dirty dog and all the blue collar men's boots that go up and down the stairway. I had time to drink one final cup of coffee before I heard from the baby monitor the change in her breathing that indicates she was waking up. I went in and laid down next to her. She climbed back across my chest and spent the next twenty minutes flipping from one cuddle position to another on top of me. She would close her eyes until I thought she was falling back asleep, and then open her eyes and give me a huge smile. Then she'd bury her face in my neck and give me kisses. It was, like, the bestest baby cuddles EVER. All she wanted was to feel her mama's body next to hers, for me to keep her warm, to smell her mama, to feel her mama's touch smoothing her hair and stroking her cheek and smelling her neck. I felt like we were wrapped in a warm cocoon of love, there in her calm, quiet, dark bedroom. I don't know how long the cuddles would have gone on, if my hubby hadn't crept in to check on us. Babygirl sat up with a radiant smile, gave him a kiss, and held out her arms to be picked up and brought out into the world again.

She is so wonderful right now, as she rides the fine line between babyhood and childhood. It is as if she combines the best of both. I love her so very, very much and on some level I can't see how she could ever possibly be as wonderful as she is right now. I file away the memory of our 20-minute cuddlefest to savor, this morning as I ride to work, in a year, in ten years, decades from now as the end of my life draws near.

She is seventeen months old today. Happy "birthday," baby.

Weight Watchers watch

Weight Watchers officially starts today. As of this AM, the scale told me I weigh 178 when I stepped on buck-naked. I wore my lightest-weight dress to work today, as I won't be stripping down for the weigh-in. (Yeah, that outfit kept me really warm in the 10-degree 6AM Boston morning chill.) Anyway, now begins ten weeks (at least) of dieting, which I refuse to call "deprivation" although they have much in common. And if I'm feeling really motivated, I'll start going into the basement to spend some quality time with the treadmill after I get the babygirl to sleep. Screw it. As long as I'm gonna be miserable anyway, I might as well do miserable right. Sigh... Anyway, my ultimate goal weight is 142, my pre-pregnancy weight. My goal for the ten weeks of this Weight Watchers At Work program is to lose 15 pounds. 163, here I come.

Hi there!

Things are lookin' up!

Well, I'm finally starting to feel like I might be able to get a financial toehold in the world after all. I got a nice raise back in November, which was topped off by a cost of living adjustment in January. Then, when my brother-in-law and his family moved out of our upstairs apartment to join my mother-in-law in New Mexico, we got a new tenant in there who's only going to be home on weekends but is paying us nearly twice as much in rent as we were getting. And I filed our taxes electronically, resulting in a nice refund being direct-deposited into our checking account, thankyouverymuch. Long story short, I paid all our bills, made extra-big payments on the credit cards, paid nice extra principle payments on the mortgage and equity line, opened a savings account for the babygirl, and we *still* have more in the bank than we have had anytime in recent memory. Plus I started an automatic withdrawal from my pre-tax paycheck for deposit into an employer-matched retirement savings account. Just 2% of my check, mind you, but that's more than I've ever managed to save before, and I can jack up that percentage anytime I feel the household budget can handle it.

I know it's tempting fate to so much as acknowledge that our financial picture is finally moving from the red into the black, but *hot damn!* it feels good, and I've never had a chance to feel this way before, and it's my damn blog, and nobody reads this stupid thing anyway, so I'll post about it anyway. Finally, at age 35, I'm becoming financially responsible. I'm saving. I'm thinking about sending at least one kid to college, and about maybe even retiring someday. Oh yeah, and the Mega Millions lottery is up to $212 million. I spent $5 on some quick picks today. Sure, that's most likely a waste of $5, but what the heck - you can't win if you don't play, right? Maybe I'll win, and then I'l look at the measly little $400 savings account I just opened and just laaa-aaa-aaaugh.

*** we're in the money... we're in the money... we've got a lot of what it takes to get along... ***

Getting my nose out of the feedbag

Weight Watchers starts next Monday. I'm trying to get into the right frame of mind for it by taking ownership of what I'm eating in the meantime. Why is it that when I'm home I can't stay the hell out of the kitchen? It's like I crave the stimulation of eating. Which frustrates me because, aren't I getting the emotional stimulation and satisfaction I need from the babygirl? Apparently not everything I need. But I refuse - REFUSE - to role-model unhealthy, dependent eating habits to my little girl. I grew up with a very unhealthy relationship to food that led to a long and bitter battle with weight, one that I did not resolve until I was twenty when I lost over 70 pounds and kept it off for five years. Of course, that's when I got preggo with babygirl, and now I've still got 40 excess pounds of baggage to get rid of. I want to spare her this battle. I don't want her to remember me floating back and forth from the fridge to the cabinets, grazing nonstop and having to tear myself away to spend quality time with her. I absolutely love the time I spend with her. But there is some deeply buried but very vocal piece of my consciousness that wants to eat NOW, to eat FIRST, before anything else including spending time with my precious little one. That piece of me needs to quiet down. I need to learn how to meet the underlying need so that I can get it to quiet down. In the meantime, I keep telling myself when I drift in the direction of the kitchen, "Get your nose out of th feedbag, woman!"

You may feel free to borrow that line if you like it.

happy happy joy joy

I have finally gotten high speed Internet service at home! Fare thee well, dial up service. It's so nice to click and a link and - boop! - I'm there. I don't often get to blog from home because it takes so freaking long, but wait, now it doesn't anymore. Thanks, Cox, you're a pal.

Also, it's Saturday and I have the whole house to myself. I got the babygirl down for her nap 40 minutes ago, cleaned the kitchen/bathroom floor *right quick*, and now have maybe 35 whole minutes left to myself. What a blessed, wonderful thing it is to have time to myself! And it so rarely happens anymore. I'm going to eat leftover pizza for lunch (note: Weight Watchers not starting til next week), read the last few pages of a novel while I flip through my fave blogs, and enjoy the sound of Carole King's "Tapestry" coming through the baby monitor. I really couldn't think of any nicer music to leave on in her room to calm her in her sleep. Hee!

Have a nice weekend, everyone. I know I will. I played hooky from work yesterday (it's OK, I don't have anything due until mid-March) and also have Monday off for President's Day. You know, every weekend should be a four-day weekend.

Bye!

Weaning (sob!), Valentine's Day

Well, it's happening sooner than I thought, and I am both happy and sad about it. There is no doubt that my babygirl is weaning. Her consumption of pumped milk has dropped to nearly nothing - she's been taking just a couple of ounces of her "breakfast bottle," which was always the most crucial bottle of her day. The rest of my milk has just been sitting in the fridge, slowly going sour. Yesterday I did the unthinkable - flushed two full 6-oz bottles down the toilet, because they had spoiled. And then I dumped the 4 oz. remaining of her breakfast bottle down the sink. I'm down to one pump a day at work, just enough to give my boobies the signal to keep making enough milk for an early AM feeding.

But she's also scaling back on her consumption of milk from the tap. On the days I'm home, I breastfeed her when she first wakes up, but she doesn't ASK for it; she wakes up and I offer it to her. Then she doesn't generally ask to nurse until the mid- to late afternoon, right about the time I get home on workdays. This is the only nursing session she actually asks for anymore. And even then she remains distractible - by the TV, by the dog, by her daddy. Our afternoon nursing session tends to be long, but she isn't doing a lot of sucking and swallowing. She holds me in her mouth, sucking just a bit, while she futzes with my bra strap and shirt and face. When she finishes, there's clearly still more milk to be had that she just doesn't want. This nursing session is more about being close to me than it is about nourishment.

She still nurses when I put her down to bed for the night, of course. She doesn't have to ask for this nursing session; it's our entrenched routine. I read her a book, usually "Goodnight Moon," we lie down on her bed, I give her boobies, and she falls asleep. But this nursing session has also gotten shorter, and she is less likely to fall asleep on the boob. Sometimes she plays with my nipple a bit before she'll even take it into her mouth to nurse. I think she'll be ready to give this one up soon.

I had hoped, no, planned to nurse until she turned two. So on a certain level, it's unexpected and sad that she's not interested in continuing the nursing relationship for that long. I'm trying to look at it as a good thing - she is so happy and self-confident and secure of her place in our lives and the world, and has adjusted so well to real food and drink, that she just doesn't feel the need to nurse the way she did when she was just a little thing. I'm also very psyched that soon I'll be able to stop pumping, and frankly, stop thinking so damned much about my breasts. But I have such mixed feelings at this very real, very obvious transitional step in her life. Never again will she be my little tiny nursing baby, my little boobie baby. Never again will I hear what I called the "boobie chuckle," that half-laugh, half-anxious-cry that used to come out of her mouth as I set up the Boppy, placed her on it, and unfastened my shirt and bra to allow her access. Now she's an independent little toddler, complete with sippy cups of soymilk instead of bottles of breastmilk. I'm happy to see her turn into a toddler. Her every developmental step fills my heart with joy, pride, and pure pleasure. It's just the baby she's left behind that I will miss - for how long I don't know, but certainly for awhile.

Anyway, on a less bittersweet note, happy Valentine's Day!!! My hubby bought me two dozen long-stemmed red roses. They're gorgeous and even smell nice, if not very strong. He actually gave them to me yesterday, along with cards from both him and the babygirl. It's OK that he gave them to me yesterday, because that gave me time this morning to divide out one dozen and wrap them up to bring into my office. (Flowers always mean more when they are at the office where everyone can *see* them, am I right? Bad, shallow, petty little me!)




Thanks, honeybear, for the flowers and for everything. I try to make a point of telling you how much I appreciate what you do, but I don't know if I say it often enough or in the way you'd most like to hear it. So I'll say it here for all the world to hear. I love you and I am an incredibly lucky woman, to have a man who loves me and our daughter so very much, who is faithful and loyal and supportive and constant, and who can be tender and loving and strong and macho all at the same time. Without you, I could not have the happy, mostly-balanced life that I do. You are all that I want and more than I deserve. Happy Valentine's Day, my sweetie, and many, many more.

A-HA! Pictures!

It's pretty unusual for the picture icon to return immediately, but it did today. So here, for your enjoyment, are some really cute pictures. If I do say so myself. And believe me, I do.

My babygirl's growing up. Dieting time approaches.

My babygirl, at 16 months, is starting to scale back her nursing and also her consumption of pumped breastmilk. Yesterday she nursed when we woke up together at 6:30 but then not again until 3PM. Even then, I initiated nursing because my boobs were throbbing and aching. She did nurse three more times though, including her going-to-sleep session, which clearly is going to be the last nursing session to go when she finally weans. Its form has changed throughout her life so far, but right now the way it goes is that she nurses for a crazy long time, then finally decides she's had enough, rolls away from me and falls asleep. But the fact that she went for eight and a half hours without asking to nurse really blows my mind. She's always been such a boobie baby.

On the days that I work, her daddy gives her the milk I've pumped on previous days. For most of her life, she would have three or even four 6-oz bottles over the course of the day. When I first returned to work I was pumping four times a day to keep up with her need. Yeah, it was as rough as it sounds. Finally I went down to three pump sessions a day, and that's where I've been ever since. This usually allows me to generate two and a half bottles a day. Then, on the days I'm home, I manage to squeeze in one small pump session per day to top off that third bottle. Within the last few weeks, since we started giving her soy milk instead of whole cow's milk, she's really cut back on her breastmilk consumption. Two bottles, or sometimes even just one, per day. I've been freezing one or two full bottles every work day. Clearly I don't need to still be pumping three times per day. Starting today, I'm dropping to two sessions. Hooray! If she keeps cutting back I'll drop to just one session soon. And there, on the horizon, I can see that happy day when I pack up my pump, bring it home, and stick it in the basement to await the possible arrival of baby #2. I will so NOT miss pumping.

The downside of all this is that I will need to start watching my diet soon. I gained 70 pounds while pregnant. I lost 30 immediately but have been carrying around the extra 40 ever since. Why? Because I discovered that for so long as I am breastfeeding, I can eat ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING I WANT and not gain an ounce. Or lose an ounce for that matter, but c'mon people, eat and not gain weight? Yeah, sign me up. Now that the breastfeeding is winding down, though, I need to scale back my eating and even start hacking away at that forty pounds that stands between me and all my nice size 10-12 clothing packed away in bins in the basement. Coincidentally, there is a new Weight Watchers group forming at my work starting next Monday. I think it's a sign that I'm meant to join. I hate dieting. I hate exercising (for exercise's sake, that is, as opposed to doing fun things that get my heart rate up). I've actually never done a diet that required me to count anything, whether calories or points or whatever else. But the time has come. I cannot put off the inevitable anymore. I cannot pretend to be a woman in control of my destiny and still be a slave to my food dependencies to the extent that I waddle around with an extra forty pounds on board. And I cannot set a good example of healthy food behaviors for my child this way, something I swore I would do to try to spare her the misery I went through as an overweight kid and teenager.

This is going to be tough. I love to eat. I love to eat healthy food. I love to eat unhealthy food. I love sweets. I love fats. I love carbs. I love meat. I love veggies, especially slathered in butter. I love fruits, especially when they are inside pastry or pies. I love dairy products, especially the full-fat versions. I love eggs, and could happily eat three a day every day (as I did while pregnant) for the rest of my life. Shit, I'm making myself hungry right now. But I am going to have to scale back on my indulgence of all these loves or else I will stay heavy and that's just not acceptable anymore.

Anyway, 'nuff said. Here, for your entertainment, are a few more cute pictures of my babygirl. Because of course everyone in the world enjoys pictures of my babygirl as much as I do. Of course.

Wait, I'm missing the icon to post pictures. Don't know why this happens and when it does I never know how long it will last. But it looks like you'll be spared for at least a few hours til my picture icon comes back. Sigh...

On being a mommy and a working lawyer.

I tend sometimes to take for granted how very fortunate I am. Not only do I have a happy, healthy child, but also a good and satisfying career and a solid, secure marriage. I am blessed, especially, that my husband is sufficiently secure in his masculinity that he had no problem giving up his job to stay home with the babygirl so I could keep working. And it took a while to achieve a relatively seamless integration of work and motherhood, but I think I've more or less gotten there.

This is largely possible because of the particular job I have. I am permitted to work from home one day per week, which I do on Wednesdays. (Thank you so, so, so much, super-extra-cool boss o'mine!) This is very important, because my job is so far from home that I have to wake up at 4AM to be able to start and finish my day before rush hour traffic in either direction. Wednesday work-at-home means I don't ever have to wake up at 4AM more than two days in a row. And even though I'm working, I can take breaks and lunch with my babygirl and my hubby. Little moments of happiness scattered through my otherwise-mundane working day.

Truly, I appreciate that I was not the one who had to stay home with the baby. Because, you know what? Even though I truly value every minute I get to spend with her, I still get bored sometimes. Especially now, in the winter, when we cannot go out and enjoy our big backyard or the park across the street. I have always gotten bored sitting at home, especially in the winter, and the mere fact that I now have a child there with me has not changed that fact. I could not handle being home all the time, whereas hubby is a homebody and doesn't seem to mind. Thanks for covering the home front, sweetie-pie.

That being said, I still miss my babygirl every day that I have to go to work and be away from her for basically 10 1/2 hours, including travel time both ways. She is always on my mind, if only in the back of my mind, as I am doing my work. She is my motivation for efficiency and thoroughness. I am always thinking, "I have to rip through this so I can leave on time to get home to babygirl." "I have to get this right the first time so I don't have to stay late fixing it while babygirl is missing me at home." Hubby and babygirl call me once a day at work, on my cell phone - I call it my "baby call." He and I say hi, and catch up on minutiae of the home front, and then he passes the phone to babygirl. She puts kisses on my picture on the screen, and says MAMA MAMA MAMA MAMA and DOGGY DOGGY DOGGY, and presses buttons in my ear, and laughs when I make raspberries. It is the highlight of my day.

And just to help me through my day without her, I've put up pictures of babygirl all around my office. There's at least one picture from every Kiddie Kandids sitting I've taken her to in her lifetime, and there's been a lot, starting at 3 1/2 weeks old. Here's some pictures of my office, just to give you some idea of how thoroughly my babygirl has permeated my professional environment. To be fair, some of the pictures are of other kids - my nephews, my buddy G's two kids - and some are of other grownups and even my dog, but 90% of them are of the babygirl.







I hope I can be a positive role model for my babygirl as she grows up. I hope she will see that a woman can be a mommy and still have a life of her own. I hope she will see that a mommy can support a whole family on her own. I hope she will have a relaxed, peaceful, balanced, happy mommy who doesn't need to pin the weight of all her hopes and her dreams on her kid(s) instead of achieving at least a few of her own ambitions. But at the same time, I fear that my hubby will spoil babygirl for all other men - after all, her male role model stays home with her, makes her the center of his life, cleans the house, does half the cooking, and is warm and loving and nurturing all at the same time. In short, my hubby is everything a man used to look for in a wife. How likely is she to be able to find a man half as good once SHE grows up and has her own hopes, dreams, and ambitions to fulfill?

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

My sister-in-law A. along with Hyperactive Boy and L'il Cherub Baby moved out to New Mexico, flying out there with my mother-in-law, yesterday. My brother-in-law T. will be joining them in about three weeks, after he gets done shipping some of their stuff out there, selling other stuff, and trashing the rest.

These are pictures I took at the airport. First one is A. with L'il Cherub Baby; second is Hyperactive Boy. I already miss the hell out of 'em all already.

Random babygirl pix.

My hubby's too-damn-cool-n-hip middle brother M. and his lovely girlfriend bought babygirl this pj set for Xmas. I had the hardest time photographing her in it because my GOD, the girl never stands still for even a second, especially once she sees the camera come out. For those of you who STILL can't read them, the shirt has the AC/DC band logo, and the seat of the bottom says "Dirty Deeds" as in the AC/DC song "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap." Too funny, and too damn cute.













Babygirl gets the most amazing bed head, every time she sleeps. Sometimes it's cute. Other times - just plain scary. I thought that THIS particular bed head was especially epic.

More pictures of babygirl's room.

We are continuing to restore babygirl's room to its pre-Babymama-occupation state of peace and harmony. First, a picture of the changing table/dresser from the furniture set I bought while pregnant. I just love this set. I miss the matching crib being in her room, especially now that it looks like it won't be returning (babygirl sleeps just fine in her queen-size bed, thank you very much).



This is my nursing/rocking corner. Notice that the black rocker is dressed up with colorful fleece blankets, and all babygirl's books are neatly stacked (momentarily) on the second shelf of the bookcase. Note also that you can very faintly make out a toy motorcycle on the bottom shelf - a gift from daddy.



This big, dark, ugly dresser was brought up from the basement for Babymama to use instead of stacking hers and Holy Terror's clothes on the floor. See how it just sucks up all the light and energy around it? What a fitting metaphor for the entire Babymama episode. I'm pleased to say that my hubby moved it out of the room yesterday afternoon.



My MIL picked up on a hint I dropped (like a brick on her foot) and bought this sorter bin and rack set for babygirl before she returned to New Mexico yesterday. We've moved it to where the Babymama dresser was. MUCH better.