I think it has been about two weeks since posting any news! Time flies... I've been busy with Hank and messing around the house. I've been getting to know the slow cooker I bought several years ago, thinking it would be the answer to always having fresh cooked meals. I barely used it until having a baby made making dinner at dinner time impossible... I've been making turkey and spinach meatballs, swedish meatballs, different stews, curries, and even a pot roast! I feel so domestic, although some of the recipes need some tweaking. For instance, the pot roast was dry (how can a piece of meat, cooked in liquid, wind up dry??). But the curry rocked, and the turkey and spinach meatballs were so good I've made them a few times over.
I also made a stuffed hippo for Hank! It is a little lopsided, but considering it was the most ambitious sewing project I've done since high school, I'm pretty pleased. Next up, some new hats for Hank as his head has gotten too big for most of the hats we've got for him. And some seersucker overalls for spring.
Enough of my domesticity... How is Hank? Poor little Hank has a cold, or possibly the flu, according to his doctor. This is his first bout with illness, not counting the jaundice at birth, and we're just trying to keep him well fed and hydrated, and rested. I've got the humidifier running 24/7, and I have to irrigate his sinuses with saline every time I do a diaper change. As you can imagine, he hates that. He's on the mend though, thank goodness. I've been cooped up with him in the apartment for two days running now, and I'm going to go a little stircrazy if we can't get out and about again, soon... But for now, Hank is snoozing in the sling again, so we'll be staying put for the rest of today.
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Back with a little more -- I realized after I posted that on Valentine's day, the last day I posted, Hank turned three months old, and thereby waltzed out of the fourth trimester! I felt really wistful that day. I couldn't believe we had made it this far -- that Hank was well on his way to becoming a full fledged person, and was no longer even a little bit fetal. And he just keeps on growing (at his drs appointment yesterday he weighed in at 15lbs 5.6oz!). He babbles constantly, and is trying on new sounds daily. We are teaching him some sign language -- Mom, Dad, Milk, More, Cat, Diaper Change -- that's it for now. He's constantly aware of everything around him, to the point that it is almost hard to complete a feeding, that's how distracted he can get. His hair has gotten so long, that it no longer stands on end, and he really looks like a little man now. His hair is starting to fall out a little in back, though, where his head rubs against the crib mattress. He's getting a bald spot there, but I do a little comb over -- such a vain mama!
In feeding news, we are pretty much finished breastfeeding. I tried, I tried. I wanted it to work, but I never was successful in getting my supply to an adequate level. And now in the last couple of weeks Hank has actually started refusing the breast and clearly preferring the bottle. It was upsetting at first, but in the end the important thing is to feed him. I thought about starting to pump again, but I just don't want to start driving myself crazy again, when everything else is going so well. Hank is a very happy little guy, and with the exception of this week's cold, very healthy, too. It is hard to put in to words what I feel about our adventures in breastfeeding, it is easier to say that overall I am comfortable with the way things are, even if I have moments when I feel a little blue about it. Sometimes I find myself wondering what we would have done had Hank been born into a society in famine, where women had to struggle to build a milk supply, and had no alternatives to breastmilk were breastfeeding not possible. Even though I regret that I wasn't able to build a milk supply, I am really grateful that we have safe formulas in this country, and that we can use that alternative to feed Hank.
It was just over a year ago that I got pregnant with Hank, and I'm constantly grateful for the year we've all had here at the Wagmonds. It was full of challenges, and so much joy. In the last few days I've found myself thinking a lot along the lines of 'a year ago today we were...' and reliving the road trip Henry and I took around the Grand Circle, when in was still just the two of us. Now we've got this enormous baby with crazy nutso hair who just seems to be really, really in to us. And any road trip we take in the forseeable future will have to accommodate a baby, too.
Now I really will close for today! Seems I'm now starting tocome down with whatever creeping crud it is that Hank has had, just in time for him tostart feeling better (he's all smiles and wiggles tonight, clearly on the mend).
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